The Reeve’s Tale magazine website

Church View

Formerly a workhouse, then school, then bakery and shop, a blacksmith and finally a home. Main wing of 1781.

It became very run down in recent years.  The windows and the interior timbers rotted.  But  recently it has been taken over by Matthew Beckett,  Peter Jervis and James Lilwall who have restored it very sympathetically, uncovering many of its original features and turning it into comfortable dwellings and a public bar.

Parishes used to be responsible for looking after their poor and this building was where they were given a roof to live under, and were put to work.  Conditions were often very harsh.

In 1836 several Parishes formed a Union and built a larger workhouse  at Gressenhall to accomodate all the poor of the area.
After it was closed as a workhouse, the house became the village school.
The baker's oven is intact and also many other original features.

The old blacksmith's workshop has been made into an annexe for the pub,  and the hand-operated petrol pump which stood there for years rusting away, has gone to a keen collector in the South who is going to restore it.

A view of the house from the church tower