Magazine Cottage

Magazine Cottage is a powder magazine or armoury, dating back to approximately 1643. It is said to have been constructed during the Civil War by Sir Hamon Le Strange, a prominent Royalist and Lord of the Manor of Sedgeford, during a period when he was besieged in King's Lynn by Parliamentary forces. The building was later converted into a cottage and was restored in the 19th century by C.F. Rolfe Neville, also Lord of the Manor, with details largely of that century.

The exterior is of coursed and galletted carstone, with brick dressings originally stuccoed to resemble limestone, featuring rusticated quoins and dressings. It has a red pantiled roof. The building is single-storied with an attic, and has a part-basement lean-to to the north. The south elevation features a central three-light, four-centred Gothic arched window containing 20th-century casements, previously fitted with iron stay bars. Two plain stone rectangular tablets are set into the wall below the window, each with iron hooks. The building includes a modillion eaves cornice, parapet gables with stone coping, and kneelers with dentil brackets and ball finials at eaves and gable apex levels. The west gable mirrors the south front with a similar three-light window. The east and west gables have semi-circular headed attic windows with rendered surrounds, imposts, keystones, and fixed wooden framed lights. The east gable features a central door with a semi-circular, rusticated architrave surround, horizontal rusticated blocks, and voussoirs to the arch. The 19th-century door has carved shields in the spandrels and over-lights, which have been temporarily removed. The steeply pitched roof originally had moulded ridge tiles. To the east, three steps lead to the door, preceded by a carstone wall with stone coping, octagonal brick dwarf piers with moulded brick caps, and finials. The north lean-to is partially contemporary, constructed of carstone with a pantiled roof. It includes rusticated quoins, drip moulds over all openings, basement casement windows, and a western entrance door leading to an area. Three ground floor slit windows are located on the east and west sides, set within rusticated dressings. A catslide roof extends from the lean-to, with a small semi-circular dormer inserted between two twin octagonal brick stacks with moulded caps.

Internally, a 19th-century floor has been inserted, supported by temporarily dismantled oak transverse beams with arched spandrels containing carved Rolfe heraldic devices and initials. The attic contains 17th-century chamfered arched braced principals and purlins. Wall paintings, described in 1920 but now gone, were documented in Holcombe Ingelby's "The Charm of a Village." Historical context is provided by R. W. Ketton-Cremer's "Norfolk in the Civil War."