Well House

Well House is a house located on the west side of High Street in Swaffham Prior, likely dating from the early 16th century and possibly originally an open-hall. The building has undergone several alterations, including the addition of a shop at the south end and a service wing at the rear, with further extensions made in the 19th century.

The structure features a timber frame resting on a brick sill, with plaster-rendered walls. The gable ends have been rebuilt in brick, and the roofs are covered with plain tiles, hipped to the south and featuring a gablet. The eaves are coved, and there is an early 18th-century ridge stack made of yellow brick with red brick quoins and a string-course, while the end stack is from the 19th century.

The plan consists of three bays with a cross-passage at the low end of the hall, and the house has one storey plus attics. There are three flat-roofed dormers, each fitted with 18th to 19th-century horizontal sliding sashes containing small panes. The main doorway, possibly located where the cross-passage entry once was, features an early 19th-century flat hood and a panelled door. A 19th-century bootscraper is attached to the brick sill beside the door. Flanking the doorway are two late 18th or early 19th-century hung sashes, each with sixteen panes and early 19th-century panelled shutters.

The early 19th-century double-fronted shop has an elliptical lead hood. The single-room kitchen wing is also timber-framed but constructed with lighter materials, standing two storeys high with a plain tiled roof. Inside, the house boasts hollow and roll-moulded main beams in the hall floor frame and the sites for two diamond mullion windows.