NHER 12922 (Building record) - 81 High Street

81 High Street.

December 1951. Listed Grade II*.
See (S1).
A. Cattermole (King's Lynn UAD), 23 November 2018.

November 1977. Field Observation.
Visited by E. Rose (NAU).
Mid-Georgian, ashlar façade, five bays, three storey. Alternating triangular and rounded pediments to first floor windowns. Good doorcase in Library Court. Home of John Exton, Mayor of Lynn, in 1735.
Compiled by E. Rose (NAU), 3 November 1977. Information from record card (S1).
Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 21 July 2023.

Good 18th-century panelled chimneypiece with paired columns on interior.
E.M. James (KLM), 9 August 1985.

The façade of the upper two storeys in fact crosses over Library Court; the good 19th-century shop front is set to one side of this. The top storey windows are square and there is a stone balustrade (which may perhaps have since been removed- information from photograph published in 1948). There are in fact two second floor chimneypieces with columns; (S2) calls them Jacobean but they certainly do seem 18th century (photocopies in file). Another room had fine Renaissance panelling which was 'recently' shipped to America in 1929 (S2). The Music Room above the shop has 18th-century panelling and chimney piece (drawing in file). E.M. James (KLM) disagrees with Hawes' attribution of the 18th-century work to Henry Bell.
Compiled by E. Rose (NAU), 11 February 1987. Information from record card (S1).
Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 21 July 2023.

March-April 1995. Field Observation.
Excavations and major alterations to building.
Originally a timber framed building, certainly early 17th century (reassembled window found, reset fireplace survive) perhaps earlier. Grand interiors with fireplaces, panelling, etc and almost certainly the stone façade date from about 1735 when occupied by Exton, Mayor of Lynn. Rear wing refaced and rearranged about 1820. Plain west extension probably an 18th-century warehouse.
Excavations during alterations in 1995 produced medieval pottery and occupation layers.
See report (S3) for further details.
E. Rose (NLA), 11 April 1995.

Further detailed discussion in (S4) in file.
See also (S5).
E. Rose (NLA), 5 February 2004.

Listing Description excerpt:
"Shop with offices above and to rear wing extending west down north side of Library Court. Early 17th century, remodelled internally early 18th century, mid-19th-century refronting in Italianate style. Brick with stone façade. Pantiled and slate roofs...Three storeys in five bays. 20th-century shopfront to right of entrance to Library Court, the entrance having an elaborate architrave with a heavy hood on scrolled brackets. Cast-iron grille over door. Main facade lit through sashes with one glazing bar each, the first-floor windows with alternatly pedimented and segmentally pedimented hoods. Projecting modillion cornice. Panelled parapet conceals roof. In Library Court are two ranges, the eastern being domestic quarters, the western warehouse accommodation, now in retail use. Two storeys. West part entered through a panelled door under a glazed overlight with glazing bars. Panelled doorcase with scrolled consoles supporting a pedimented hood above triple keystones...Gabled roof. Western range is former warehouse...Entrance to right under a loading-bay door...Gabled roof with two gabled dormers in south roof slope. Three ridge stacks at intervals in rear ranges.
INTERIOR. First floor room to facade with marble fire surround. Foliate frieze below mantelpiece. Decorated overmantel with a swan-necked pediment and hood above an egg-and-dart frieze. One panelled door right and left with egg-and-dart surrounds, a frieze above with lions' heads and a hood. A third door in west wall similar. Large-frame panelling with dado rail to north, west and south walls. All this c.1735."
Information from (S6).
Please consult the National Heritage List for England (S6) for the current listing details.
P. Watkins (HES), 20 July 2023.