SWAFFHAM, a market-town and parish in the
southern division of  the hundred of GREENHOE,
county of NORFOLK, 28 miles (W. by N.) from Norwich,
and 95 (N. N. E.) from London, containing 2S36
inhabitants. This ancient town is situated on an eminence
commanding an extensive view of the surrounding
country, and is remarkable for the salubrity of its
air, and the longevity of its inhabitants; it consists of
four principal, and several inferior, streets; the houses
in general are well built, and the inhabitants are well
supplied with water from springs. A book club is supported
by subscriptions among the clergy and gentry in
the town and neighbourhood; a neat theatre has been
recently erected, and an elegant assembly-room, on the
market hill, was lately repaired and modernised, at a
considerable expense; subscription assemblies are held
monthly. On the north-west side of the town is a fine
heath of some thousand acres, admirably adapted fo»
the diversions of racing and coursing; greyhounds are
annually entered here for the latter amusement, in the
month of November, being subject to the same restrictions
as race-horses. A charter for a market and two
annual fairs was granted by King John to one of the
Earls of Richmond, who were anciently lords of the
manor. The market is on Saturday; and fairs are held
on May 12th for sheep, July 21st, and November 3rd,
for sheep and cattle. The market-place, a fine area surrounded
by handsome buildings, contains a beautiful
cross, erected in 1783, by Lord Orford, consisting of a
circular dome covered with lead, sxipported on eight
pillars, and crowned with a figure of Ceres, the whole
being enclosed with palisades. The county magistrates
hold a weekly petty session: the general quarter sessions
are held here at Midsummer only, by adjournment
from Norwich; manorial courts leet and baron are held
annually in April or May. This town having formerly
been held in royal demesne, the inhabitants are exempt
from toll, and from being empannelled on juries, or any
recognizances, except in the court of the manor. Anciently
the Earl of Richmond had a prison in the town,
and a house of correction, or bridewell, was erected in
the 41st of Elizabeth, for the convenience of several
adjoining hundreds. The New Bridewell was built
about 1787, and will hold upwards of one hundred prisoners;
attached to it is a chapel, the chaplain, who
has a stipend of £200 per annum, being elected by the
justices; a tread-mill was erected in 1822, and, in 1825,
a handsome residence for the governor.
The living is a vicarage, with the rectory of Thrixton
annexed, in the archdeaconry of Norfolk, and diocese
of Norwich, rated in the king's books at £14. 5. 10.,
and in the patronage of the Bishop of Norwich. The
church, which is dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul,
is a splendid and spacious cruciform structure, with a
stately and well-proportioned embattled tower and turreted
spire, in the later style of English architecture;
in the transept are three chapels; the vaulted roof of
the nave, richly adorned with figures of angels carved
in Irish oak, and that of the side aisles, rest on fourteen
arches, supported on fine slender clustered pillars,
and are surmounted by twenty-six clerestory windows;
in the interior are several handsome monuments, and
some brasses, bearing a variety of inscriptions; and
in a library attached to the church is a curious missal.
The north aisle is commonly reported to have been
built by John Chapman, a tinker of this town; concerning
which circumstance, there is a curious monkish
legend, and there are various devices of a pedlar, and
others representing a person keeping a shop, in different
parts of the church, which are, in alt likelihood, only
rebuses on the name of Chapman, a conceit very prevalent
in former times; the founder having probably been
a person of that name, who was churchwarden in 1462.
This church has lately received an addition of one
hundred and seventy sittings, of which one hundred
and four are free, the Incorporated Society for the enlargement
of churches and chapels having contributed
£50 towards defraying the expense. Here was anciently
a free chapel, dedicated to St. Mary;' and about half
a mile distant, in a hamlet formerly called Guthlac's
Stow, now Goodluck's Close, stood another, dedicated to
St. Guthlac. There are places of worship for Baptists
and Wesleyan Methodists. The grammar school was
founded by Nicholas Hammond, Esq., who by will bequeathed
£500 for erecting a school-house, and £500
for the instruction of twenty boys in reading, writing,
and arithmetic. A National and Evening school is
supported by subscription. Several houses have been
given, at different periods, as rent-free residences for the
poor, for whom there is also a workhouse, \yhk'h was
the residence of the rector before the impropriation
took place. John de Swaffham, a man of great learning,
and a strenuous opponent of "Wicklille, who was
raised to the see of Bangor by Pope Gregory II., was a
native of this town.