Great Yarmouth Potteries

A fish curing works, dating from the early 19th century, now used as a pottery. The building was constructed against the town walls built between 1285 and 1295, located to the east. It is constructed of brick, Quaternary and Quarry flint and chert, with timber interior partitioning and pantile roofs. The complex comprises three distinct ranges.

The two-storey southern range originally served as stables, with a hayloft above. A lean-to brick and pantiled outbuilding against the wall projecting to the west front creates a courtyard. A central doorway is sheltered by a sloping hood, with a casement window to its left and two windows on the first floor. The east wall incorporates sections of the medieval town wall, featuring two, and at the north end, the remains of a third, 13th-century brick and flint buttress. A ship’s mast rises through both storeys. The central range is a gutting house, also with a courtyard formed by weatherboarded lean-to buildings with brick end-gables. The main block of the gutting house leans against the medieval town walls. A south lean-to was a sales office with a central passage leading to a stable yard and incorporating a ledger room. A north lean-to provided storage and now contains pottery kilns. The upper floor of the gutting house retains a passage with five doors leading to smoke chambers and is lit by one late 13th-century splayed lancet window at its east end. The west front of the gutting house is weatherboarded, with a 20th-century ground-floor window and doorway.

The interior, now a coffee shop (ground floor) and a pottery shop (first floor), retains the original gutting house, including a well and subterranean brine tanks. The roof structure consists of rafters and purlins, with extensive timber partitioning, including salvaged marine timbers. The north range is a smokehouse, a tall, single-storeyed building with a pantiled gabled roof. The east side has five windows under the eaves, the north side has four sloping dormers, and the west side is plain and gabled. The east side is contiguous with the town walls, featuring a flint and brick gable-head. The roof ridge has twelve smoke louvres. Inside the smokehouse, there are five double smoke bays accessed by a single timber door at ground floor level. The brick dado supports timber racks and loves extending to the roof above a brick floor. Evidence of an earlier brick and flint structure exists on the site. Five loading doors at first-floor level access the lean-to to the south. The roof is constructed of common rafters and continuous purlins. The east bay is without racks and loves; its east wall is of 13th-century origin and lit by a splayed lancet window. Two gargoyles, likely from the house of the Blackfriars, are also present.