3 And 4, Market Place

TL8783 617-1/6/97

THETFORD MARKET PLACE (North side) Nos. 3 AND 4

03/04/51

GV II*

Pair of shops and flats above. C16. Mostly rebuilt early C18, re-worked late C18, re-roofed 1975, restored and re-roofed following fire 1991. Timber-frame on a C14 brick undercroft. Gault brick skin to main facade. Corner site. Main south facade of 2 storeys in 6 bays. 2 doorways comprising pilaster doorcases with metope block entablatures and open pediments. Y-tracery fanlights. Alternating with doorways are three C20 plate-glass shop display windows. 6 sashes to first floor removed at time of Review. Dentil eaves cornice and gabled roof. Stacks to rear and east side. East face rendered and colourwashed with an external stack to left and two 6/6 sashes each floor to right, one of which (upper right) is blocked. Rear with 2 additional early C19 blocks added to resemble a double-pile plan. 2 storeys, flint faced with gault brick dressings. French door and a 6/6 sash to right (No.3), which is entered through a C19 brick full-height gabled porch. INTERIOR: rear porch to No.3 communicates direct to front door via a straight passage. Early C19 stick-baluster staircase with ramped and wreathed handrail. In No.4 at first floor is a patch of exposed timber-framing of early C18 scantling. Roofs 1991 except for one C16 cranked tie beam in front range. No.4 with C20 staircase and a mid C16 bressumer to rear fireplace: reeded and fluted frieze. Undercroft entered from a hatch in rear of No.4. Brick steps descend to a barrel-vaulted passage which leads south into a brick chamber with a sexpartite vault, the brick ribs plain-chamfered. No bosses. The ribs spring from moulded polygonal corbels. To the east through a double-chamfered stilted arch is a 2nd chamber formerly with a quadripartite vault, the ribs of which have been removed and the ceiling boarded. Springers remain. To west is a doorway leading into a chamber reduced in size by a timber partition and turned into a coal-cellar with a shute to the street. This formerly also quadripartite-vaulted.

Listing NGR: TL8718883083