NHER 4298 (Building record) - The Tolhouse

June 1953. Listed, Grade I.
Listing Description excerpt:
"A merchant's fortified house. Begun c.1150 and altered c1250. Hired to the Borough in the 14th century and purchased by them in 1552. Used for a variety of civic functions: prison (1261-1875), town hall (to 1882), police station, court house and toll office. Restored in 1883, when the rear wing was demolished, bombed April 1941 and restored 1960-1. Used as a museum and library from the 1880s. Fortified first-floor hall house illustrating early adaptation of military architecture to domestic purpose. Flint with some ashlar and ashlar dressings. Plain tiled roof. The north gable wall has been rebuilt 20th century, and the south gable wall largely rebuilt.
EXTERIOR: the east front is of two storeys. Three-window range in all. To the left is a four-light transomed casement of 1960 copying one inserted in 1622. To its right is a flat buttress with a statue of Justice on the top and a cartouche with Yarmouth's coat of arms (three Royal lions dimidiated with herring tails) and the name of the Mayor in 1781, William Fisher. Right again is a forebuilding added c.1250 in front of a blocked arch of c.1150. The forebuilding has a staircase rising to the entrance door of the first-floor hall. It has a pointed arched grille opened in 1883 and a corbel table of trefoiled machicolations beneath a pair of arched unglazed cinquefoiled windows. The main hall is lit through two two-light Geometric windows with encircled quatrefoils. They are of 1883 replacing two wide transomed casements. To the extreme right is an added 14th- or 15th-century bay lit through two slit vents and a 20th-century two-light leaded casement.
INTERIOR: the first-floor hall is entered through a pointed arched doorway with two orders of colonnettes with dog-tooth decoration in the jambs. The hall has a further doorway leading to the former south-west wing and two window embrasures. Crown-post roof of 1960. The basement is divided into two rooms. The north room has four detention cells protected by an iron screen of circular-section verticals. Four oak cell doors with heavy gate latches. The cells are oak-lined and each has an air vent in its barrel vault. The cells were proposed in 1796 and erected soon after. The added north bay has the remains of a winder staircase..."
Information from (S1).
Please consult the National Heritage List for England (S1) for the current listing details.
S. Spooner (NLA) 2 December 2005. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 11 March 2022.

Early 13th century building, possibly built around an earlier core, originally domestic.
Much altered 1619 to 1622 and part demolished, perhaps earlier.
Cells etc about 1800.
Gutted 1941 and restored.
Now a museum.
See report (S2).
E. Rose (NAU) 4 November 1982.

January 1997. Descheduled.
Descheduled but remains protected as a Listed Building.
Information from (S3).
H. Mellor (HES), 4 July 2018.

The prison mentioned above as being closed in 1875 in fact stood on the adjacent site and was demolished in 1905 to construct the Tolhouse Library, itself destroyed in 1940.
See (S4).
E. Rose (NLA), 31 October 2006.