NHER 19198 (Building record) - Clock House, High Street

July 1958. Listed, Grade II.
Listing Description excerpt:
"Lock-up and clock tower. Dated 1679, altered C19. Rendered brick. 2 storeys. 2 square-headed doors under flat hoods on labels, altered in early C19 from original arched doors. Flat string course rises to enclose clock of 1825 under pediment. Recessed panel below with datestone. 2 4-centred timber arches protrude above pediment. Arms of Watton above in form of rebus (Wat : a hare and a Tun : a barrel). Battlemented parapet with frieze of brick in panels containing diaper and fleur-de-lys. Timber cupola erected 1820 with copper cap and weather vane".
Information from (S1).
H. Mellor (HES), 22 June 2017.

Clock tower is narrow with three storeys. Has two spandrelled doors to lock-ups under one straight hoodmould. Said in (S1) to be 19th century alteration from two pointed doors. Above is recessed panel dated 1679, below a clock which listing dates to 1825. Above this is the rest lintel from the cross at NHER 19197, now so eroded it is impossible to see the detail. Above this is a shield with a hare and barrel. Brick pediment with two traceried brick panels said by Pevsner to come from the market cross (which see NHER 19195 and 19197). Weather vane on cupola, listed as 1820, with hare and barrel. Tower is supposed to have been erected after the fire of 1673 as a warning point, and to have been refaced in 19th century. Virtually all visible façade is of latter date.
E. Rose (NAU) 18 May 1983.

Watton historians [1] say that the clock is dated 1827 not 1825. The house has a lock-up in the base as stated above and not store rooms as in some references.

For number 30 now see NHER 40381.

The rear wall of the clock tower is now inside a recent link block between nos 30 and 32 High Street, it is of blank brickwork painted over and has a strange projection at the northeast corner that might be a buttress or a chimney breast.
E. Rose (NLA) 30 April 2004.

July 2004. Interior and roof examined.
The two doorways have one overall soldier course on the interior and open into one room; two ventilators below the doorsteps presumably relate to the cellars described under NHER 40381. The projection to the northeast is indeed a chimney, now with a brick-headed niche at ground floor level, but capped off at roof level. The first floor has a blocked window to the west. Clock is indeed dated 1827. Some roof beams original but cupola, etc. rebuilt or restored. Bell has inscription 'Stevens Churchwarden 37 years, 1835' and is by Dobson of Downham Market. All the battlements have the reset terracottas, not just the south, but the merlons are of late 19th century brick, white on the south, red on the north. (S2) states that the rendering is of 1820 and suggests that the plaque dated 1674 on the adjacent number 30 may once have been on the tower west wall. Source [2] states that churchwardens gave up control of the tower in 1832, so the bell is a memorial to Mr Stevens rather than indicating control.
E. Rose (NLA) 12 July 2004.

[3] states that in February 2005 the wooden panels that supposedly covered the carved spandrels from the market cross were removed, but no carved panels remained behind them.
E. Rose (NLA) 11 March 2005.