WELCOME TO THE SWAN HOUSE, BECCLES

In the heart of Beccles town centre

Immerse yourself in the eccentric warmth of the Swan House, bursting with oodles of charm.

Ideally situated in the bustling, traditional market town of Beccles, the Swan House offers beautiful idiosyncratic room only accommodation. Our characterful and distinctive rooms provide the perfect, cosy base from which to explore the Suffolk heritage coast and the Norfolk broads.

East Anglia at her most beautiful and varied is literally on the doorstep. After an intrepid day of exploring, come back to a good night’s sleep in a room designed to provide every comfort. Indulge in fully sprung mattresses, crisp white bedding, flat screen TV’s and free Wi-Fi.

To book your stay, please call 01502 713474.

ABOUT THE SWAN HOUSE

A little bit of history

The earliest recorded date of there being a tavern here was 1576: ‘Mistress Eln Rede, wedow (sic) was taxed for her tenement called Taverne late William Redes and Thomas Redes: 10 pence’. As the Redes died in 1543 and 1540 respectively, the Swan House in it’s earliest form must have predated 1540.

In 1587, the yearly rent was recorded as 8 shillings and 2 pence (about 40p or half a Euro). Originally the Tavern, as it was then known, consisted of what is now just the dining room. Floor-traps accessed the cellars and an almost circular oak staircase located alongside the inglenook fireplace, wound it’s way to the room above and up again to the attic. By the 18th century the Tavern had in all but name become a small coaching inn offering accommodation in Beccles, possibly absorbing the land to the east occupied by the old prison, which ceased by 1654.

Various buildings were added as well as four stables and a hay loft situated in the south side of the courtyard. By 1766 the ‘Tavern’ had changed it’s name to the ‘Swan’ and once more to the ‘White Swan’. On 19th July of that year the ‘Norwich Mercury’ advertised: ‘To let with a small part of the stock, the White Swan, public house in Beccles in the centre of town near the new hall, with a large stable, coach-house’. In 1882 Swan House was sold for £600. From the 1960’s to 1980’s the building was used as a tea room and later a fashion and gift shop. Roland Blunk, the previous owner, bought Swan House in 1985 and converted it into a restaurant in 1993 and to a boutique hotel in 2012. The building, although in a form inconceivable in the 16th century, became a full circle.

Art @ Swan House

Nicola Slattery

Over the past 30 years, Nicola Slattery has exhibited widely through many solo and group exhibitions. Her work has been selected on many occasions for inclusion in “Open Exhibitions” including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and those with the New English Art Club and the Royal Society of British Artists. She regularly exhibits recent work with the Cork Brick Gallery, Bungay, the Fosse Gallery in Stow on the Wold and the Langham Gallery in London.

Her work has been reproduced in numerous art magazines and art books having featured on the covers of “Artist & Illustrators” and “Galleries” magazines, also on the covers of several poetry books. Recent critical acclaim includes: “archetypal figures of compelling enigmatic inwardness” (Phillip Van, art critic and author of numerous art books on modern British and Irish art, April 2015) and “…can hardly be bettered as expressions of a fertile imaginative fantasy” (Nicholas Usherwood, Galaries Magazine, April 2015).