Swaffham is a market town and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The town was originally situated on the A47, some 20 km east of the town of King's Lynn and 50 km west of the city of Norwich. The A47 now avoids the town, using a bypass opened in 1981.
The civil parish has an area of 29.57 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 6,935 in 3,130 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of Breckland.
Its name came from Anglo-Saxon Swǣfa hām = "the homestead of the Swabians"; some of them presumably came with the Angles and Saxons.
About 8 km to the north of Swaffham can be found the ruins of the formerly important Castle Acre Priory and Castle Acre Castle. By the 14th and 15th centuries Swaffham had a flourishing sheep and wool industry. As a result of this prosperity, the town has a large market place. The Market Cross here was built by the writer Horace Walpole and presented to the town in 1783. On the top is the statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of the harvest.
On the west side of Swaffham Market Place are several old buildings which for many years housed the historic Hamond's Grammar School, as a plaque on the wall of the main building explains. The Hamond's grammar school building now serves as the sixth form for the local high school. Harry Carter, the school's art teacher, was responsible for a great number of the carved village signs that are now found in many of Norfolk's towns and villages, most notably perhaps Swaffham's own sign commemorating the legendary Pedlar of Swaffham, which is in the corner of the market place just opposite the old school's gates. Harry was the nephew of the archaeologist Howard Carter.
Today the town is known for the presence of two large wind turbines, and the associated Ecotech Centre. The turbines are owned and operated by Ecotricity, and together generate more than 3 Megawatts. These have now been joined now by a further eight turbines at North Pickenham.
In the summer of 2006, location filming was done in the town for the ITV1 series Kingdom, starring Stephen Fry. "The Startled Duck" in the TV series is better known as "The Greyhound Inn" in which the Earl of Orford created the first coursing club open to the public in 1776.
Swaffham used to be home to Lotto Lout Michael Carroll who won £9.7 Million on the National Lottery. He still owns a Spanish style home along theA47 road just outside Swaffham but lives in nearby Downham Market.
