20-22 Market Street

A shop with a social hall above it, built in 1921 for the Norwich Co-operative Society. It is unknown who designed the building.

MATERIALS: Red brick mostly laid in Flemish bond, with the upper storey rendered, and a plain-tiled roof with curved ridge-tiles.

PLAN: The building is rectangular on plan.

EXTERIOR: The principal elevation faces Market Street to the south. The upper storey is rendered, the lower storey is bare brick. The building has a hipped roof with dentilled eaves, with four gablets: one at each end (east and west) and two on the principal elevation. There is a small, central, hexagonal cupola. The building has two storeys and five bays to the front and three to the west elevation on Mundesley Road.

The gablets to the front elevation contain multi-paned arched windows with a brick hoodmould with voussoirs at sparse intervals forming a radiating pattern. Each end bay contains a two-light rectangular, multi-pane window and the central bay contains a three-light multi-pane rectangular window. The five bays are articulated at ground floor level by six, panelled-brick pilasters laid in English bond. There are shop fronts between all except the easternmost bay, which contains a pair of double doors. All shopfronts, and the double doors, have a dentil course above horizontal diamond-paned top windows, and beneath these there are larger panes. The main shop fronts form shallow, canted bays in the second and fourth bays. The central bay contains a recessed entrance with glazed shopfronts containing angled multi-pane glass doors in each side. The entrance recess contains black and white chequered ceramic floor tiles and a decorative panelled-wood ceiling.

The side elevation to Mundesley Road has three bays articulated by similar pilasters to those on the front, but with three horizontal three-light multi-pane windows to each bay on both storeys.

INTERIOR: The ground floor is mostly one open space inside, with a room containing C21 restaurant kitchen fittings at the rear, and C21 cloakrooms. There are wooden floorboards and a wooden plank ceiling. Centrally there is an arched divide with scars of a previous walled partition on the floor.

The easternmost bay contains a separate entrance to access the upper floor. It contains a wood-panelled stairwell with a dogleg staircase with stick balusters. There is a small room containing C21 toilets off the half-way landing.

On the upper floor a set of double doors containing plain glass windows is set in a large wooden doorcase with reed panelling and a canopied lintel. This leads into the main function room space. The room is panelled throughout and has a wooden dance floor. To the west end is a stage accessed by three central steps, with a balustrade around the edge with splat balusters (which are likely to have been a later addition).