Hanse House

Hanse House, King's Lynn

This Grade I listed building is a quadrangular warehouse and domestic range built as the Hanseatic Steelyard around 1475, with a licence to build granted in 1474. The east domestic range facing St Margaret's Place was rebuilt in the mid-18th century, possibly when the Hanseatic League ceased its ownership in 1751. The complex was restored in 1970–71 and converted to offices for Norfolk County Council.

The complex comprises two long parallel warehouses connected at the east end by a domestic wing and a shorter warehouse wing to the west. Both long ranges were extended at the west end, leaving the original west return set back. The buildings are constructed in timber-frame and brick with pantile roofs.

St Margaret's House, facing St Margaret's Plain, shows no surviving remains of the original 15th-century building. The current structure dates to the mid-18th century and is of stuccoed brick. It has two storeys with a dormer attic in nine bays. A plinth course runs along the base, and the corners and broken-forward centre bay feature rusticated quoins. The central panelled door is set below a seven-vaned fanlight within a timber doorcase of Doric pilasters supporting an open pediment with guttae. A pediment also rises above the centre bay. A string course divides the storeys. Rebated mid-18th-century sash windows with glazing bars light the main elevation. Wide timber eaves cornice below a hipped roof carries two gabled dormers on the east and west slopes and one on the shorter south slope. Nineteenth-century stacks rise from the rear and north slopes.

Single-bay returns extend down St Margaret's Lane, where a two-bay extension with sashes and a plain door with overlight and simple doorcase sits beneath a gabled roof with gabled dormer. The rear elevation is effectively reduced to three bays by the warehouse ranges: a central pair of French doors under a three-vaned fanlight flanks one sash on each side, with a central tripartite sash lighting the first floor.

Inside, St Margaret's House features a cantilevered geometrical staircase to the north with thin handrail and wrought-iron stick balusters. The roof comprises principals, butt purlins and collars, boarded at collar level. All courtyard elevations are rendered and colour-washed except for most of the north range and a ground-floor patch at the east end of the south range.

The two-storey range to St Margaret's Lane is timber-framed with a deep jetty at first-floor level, underbuilt in brick during the 18th century, much of which was renewed in 1970. The upper floor has brick nogging, mostly in herringbone pattern. The courtyard side is wholly brick, a common arrangement in 15th-century King's Lynn. The south side has three renewed three-light cross casements at the east end of the ground floor and five two-light mullioned windows spread along the remainder, all 20th-century work. The first floor retains two blocked original window openings and ten 20th-century casements. A gabled roof with a single hipped dormer crowns this range. The west end has a thrown brick corbel closing the jetty.

The courtyard elevation has its ground floor punctuated by late-20th-century doors and casements. The first floor displays three renewed three and four-light mullioned casements towards the west end and two three-light 18th-century metal casements at the west end. The interior is almost entirely late-20th-century in character, though the roof structure, though not fully accessible, is reported to retain one section of original crown-post trusses with arched braces from the crown post to the tie beam.

The north range also dates to around 1475 and is entirely brick, breaking here and there into conventional English bond. It rises two to three storeys with a basement. An arched pedestrian doorway with stone dressings appears on the courtyard elevation towards the east end, with the remains of a second door jamb three metres to its east. Several nearly square original window openings survive. Fenestration comprises mixed casements and sashes, some retaining pretensions of 18th and 19th-century antiquity. A gabled roof crowns the range. The north elevation was blank when built, showing scars of opened and closed windows. One large partly external stack had three set-offs above the eaves line prior to restoration.

The interior is almost entirely late-20th-century in character. First-floor bridging beams remain, as do tie beams. The roof, now inaccessible, is reported to have been of crown-post type, with relevant mortices visible in the ties.

The west wing faces South Quay and is datable by its roof structure to the early 16th century. It has two storeys of brick. Flanking later wings extending west reduce the visible elevation to three bays. A 1970 glazed porch occupies the right side, with a two-light casement to the left. The first floor has two similar casements. The three-bay courtyard elevation has a central glazed 1970 door and matching casements. A gabled roof completes the structure.

Inside, the ground-floor room has two large plain bridging beams and joists. The north wall retains three lights of a six-light mullioned external window now opening into the north-west extension, with straight-chamfered, probably early-16th-century, mullions rising to a four-centred head. The first-floor room, now the registrar's wedding room, is open to the roof, displaying four tie beams, principal rafters, lower butt purlins, clasped purlins and collars above, with curved wind-bracing. The south wall retains timber studs.

A late-18th-century brick extension abuts the west end of the main south range on St Margaret's Lane. It has two storeys, a gabled roof, some re-used brick, 1970 two-light casements, a saw-toothed eaves cornice and tumbling.

Gabled brick extensions of 17th and 18th-century date abut the west end of the original north range in two phases. The north side is blind, with 20th-century rebuilt upper parts. A basement used for offices is entered from the south, where these extensions form their own three-sided courtyard. Four two-light casements of 1970 light the first floor in the west part, with two gabled dormers. The east part has a garage door inserted in the south elevation and one two-light casement in the west gable end.

Number 1 St Margaret's Lane was listed on 7 June 1972.