Hampton Court

Hampton Court, King's Lynn

A merchant's house named after the 17th-century baker John Hampton, arranged around a courtyard in four distinct ranges. The building dates from the early 14th century with various additions and alterations since. It was restored between 1958 and 1960, and converted to 15 flats in 1962. The construction comprises stone, timber-framed and brick elements with plain tiled roofs. The courtyard elevations are rendered and colourwashed.

The south range is the earliest surviving part, dating from the early 14th century, and originally contained the hall. It is constructed of stone. The north elevation is of two storeys with a 20th-century dormer attic. There are doorways and casement windows irregularly disposed, including two and three-light cross casements and sashes which are either renewed or restored from the 17th century. A gabled roof with 11 gabled dormers arranged in pairs rises above. Three arched stone doorways are visible, two of which survive largely intact while the third retains only the remains of its east jamb. These doorways led into a screens passage with service rooms, entered via three further arched stone openings. The open hall lay to the right, with a 16th-century inserted central hearth whose rebuilt stack emerges above the ridge. To the west of the hall are two ground-floor service rooms with a single chamber above, served by the western arched doorways. A 16th-century hearth was inserted against the east wall of the western lower room with its rebuilt ridge stack rising above the surviving 14th-century stone doorway. Internal partitions are of stone, though confused by later and 20th-century additions. At the west end of the hall a blocked arched doorway led into a room probably used as a parlour.

The hall roof has been reconstructed as a crown-post type, originally comprising a tie beam supported by arched braces dropping to corbels via wall posts, with a pair of passing braces rising from the wall to terminate at the crown-post head and the ridge respectively, crossing at the apex in scissor-braced fashion. Five parallel bracing struts connected the rafters to the tie beam, and a sixth rose from the crown-post head to the rafter. Where these intersected with the passing braces, a distinctive grid effect was created, a form found elsewhere in King's Lynn. The roof is now extensively renewed with tie beams and common rafters. A section of this grid survives within a 20th-century first-floor partition wall of the present No.3 Hampton Court, though without structural purpose.

The east gable wall of this range now abuts the street range and emerges above it, but investigations during 1958 revealed no evidence of communication with the existing street range. The west gable also shows above the warehouse block at this end but was not in a state to allow speculation on similar connections.

The warehouse range followed chronologically, dating from the mid-15th century and constructed in brick. It was built parallel to and on the then bank of the river, at right angles to the hall range. The original disposition of windows and internal planning was destroyed during multiple 19th-century tenement occupation. The courtyard (east) elevation is of two storeys divided by a thin string course, with a central doorway under a split overlight, four renewed sashes with glazing bars to the right, three to the left with a second doorway, and six sashes with glazing bars above, irregularly placed, the central one round-headed. The gabled roof has details mostly from the mid-20th century. The west elevation is dominated by an arcade of seven four-centred double-chamfered arches, now blocked and pierced by doors and windows of various 19th and 20th-century types. The arches are carried on round piers with moulded capitals. The northern pair of arches are obscured by a later warehouse on the south side of St Margaret's Lane but remain identifiable. A first-floor north window is a four-light cross casement of 16th-century origins; otherwise there are four mid-20th-century sashes with glazing bars, that to the south in a taller two-storey and attic gable end with a doorway to the ground.

The east range to Nelson Street followed around 1480, probably as shops. It has a brick ground floor with a timber-framed first floor over a deep jetty. No.5, to the south, has a boarded jetty and is rendered and colourwashed; the remainder has ochre wash. No.5 features a panelled door to the left under a five-vaned fanlight, one early 19th-century sash to the left and one above with glazing bars. To the left of the entrance passage are two sashes squeezed into a two-light roll-moulded timber-mullioned window with moulded bases, originally serving a shop and the only such survivor on any Ouse-bank site. To the right are two further sashes with glazing bars separated by a subsidiary inserted doorway. The entrance passage into the courtyard has a square roll-moulded timber surround carrying a segmental arch, in the spandrels of which are carved the arms of the Amfles family; Richard Amfles took possession from William Amfles in 1482. The first floor has brick nogging with the jetty supported on knuckle braces at intervals. There are two sashes with glazing bars to the right and three mullioned casements to the left, of five, two and three lights respectively. A gabled roof with three hipped dormers with casements rises above. The cruciform ridge stack left of centre was rectangular before restoration. The north gable has a kneeler on a brick corbel with some tumbling in the gable-head, and three renewed windows. The entrance passage has hollow-chamfered and roll-moulded joists with tongue stops on heavy bridging beams; that to the courtyard is multiple roll-moulded. The courtyard elevation has two ground-floor doors into front houses and two or three-light renewed cross casements.

The north range to St Margaret's Lane dates from around 1600. Nothing is known of any previous buildings. It is constructed in brick, of two storeys with dormer attic. Three doorways under sloping hoods date from the restoration. The fenestration is predominantly of three-light cross casements with leaded glazing, restored and partly renewed but substantially from the 17th century. Those towards the west end have hollow-chamfered mullions. A gabled roof with one gabled dormer to the west crowns the range. The north elevation to the street is long and undisciplined, with three garage doors to the ground floor. A large partly external stack of the early 17th century has a set-off above the eaves line. To the left of it at first floor is one contemporary three-light cross casement, to the right a similar two-light window. The remainder of the fenestration is rather mixed, predominantly sashes, with two gabled dormers.