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Living in Swaffham
Swaffham is a market town where a detached house sells for about £320,000, with a Saturday market, a Waitrose and a Tesco. It has no railway station.
Swaffham is a market town where a detached house sells for about £320,000. It has a Saturday market, a Waitrose, a Tesco and a GP surgery. What it does not have is a railway station. Norwich is 31 miles east on the A47, about 40 to 50 minutes by car, and King’s Lynn is 12 miles west.
Where it is: about 25 miles west of Norwich city centre as the crow flies, in Breckland district, postcode PE37.
Buy in Swaffham if you work from home, in King’s Lynn or in west Norfolk, and want a market town for less than Holt costs.
It is a poor fit for a daily Norwich commute. The bus takes well over an hour and the nearest station is in Downham Market. Families should also read the schools section first. The town’s only secondary stops at 16, and Ofsted’s March 2026 report put two of its six areas at “needs attention”.
Property prices
HM Land Registry recorded 163 standard sales in Swaffham in the 12 months to June 2026. The median was £253,000 and the mean £267,000.
| Property type | Median price | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Detached | £318,750 | 80 |
| Semi-detached | £220,000 | 51 |
| Terraced | £172,000 | 27 |
| Flat | £120,000 | 5 |
The same Land Registry data for Holt gives a median of £335,000 over the same year, and £435,000 for a detached house. In Swaffham, 67 of the 80 detached houses sold that year went for less than that.
New-build prices sit well above the town median. Eleven new homes sold in the year, at Crows Nest Way, Butter Cross Crescent, Juno Drive and Ploughman Road, with a median of £380,000. The eight sales on London Street, off the Market Place, ranged from £85,000 for a terraced cottage to £550,000 for a detached house.
For the wider district, the UK House Price Index put the Breckland average at £268,905 in July 2026, up 0.6% on a year earlier. The Norfolk average was £269,185. The index adjusts for the mix of homes sold, so it will not match the Swaffham figures above.
Council tax
The Band D bill in Swaffham for 2026-27 is £2,514.19, set by Breckland Council on 23 February 2026. Of that, £202.54 is the Swaffham Town Council precept. Breckland Council’s own share is £123.48. Most of the bill goes to Norfolk County Council (£1,843.38) and the police (£344.79). Band A is £1,676.13 and Band H £5,028.38.
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Schools: primaries rated Good, a secondary with work to do
Swaffham has three primary schools. Swaffham CofE Primary Academy on Brandon Road takes ages 2 to 11 and was rated Good at its inspection on 21 June 2023. Heartwood CofE VC Primary and Nursery School on White Cross Road takes ages 3 to 11 and was rated Good on 13 July 2023.
The third is the former Sacred Heart Catholic Primary on Sporle Road. It has become an academy in the Sapientia Education Trust under a new name, Swaffham Meadow Primary School. It is small: 61 pupils in a building for 210. As a new academy it has no Ofsted report of its own yet.
The Nicholas Hamond Academy, also on Brandon Road, is the town’s secondary. It takes ages 11 to 16 and has 710 pupils against a capacity of 840. Ofsted inspected it on 17 March 2026 under the new report-card system. Attendance and behaviour, inclusion, leadership and personal development were all at “expected standard”. Achievement and curriculum and teaching were graded “needs attention”.
There is no sixth form in town. Students go to the College of West Anglia in King’s Lynn or to Dereham Sixth Form College on Crown Road in Dereham, which Northgate High School runs. The Excel bus serves both towns. The nearest independent senior school is Gresham’s in Holt; Thetford Grammar School closed on 31 August 2026.
Fred Nicholson School at 77 Lynn Road is a special school for pupils aged 3 to 19 with complex learning needs. Ofsted rated it Good after an inspection on 11 March 2025.
Getting around
The A47 links the town to Norwich and King’s Lynn. Norwich takes 40 to 50 minutes by car, and the single-carriageway stretches between Swaffham and Dereham are slow behind lorries and farm traffic. King’s Lynn is 20 to 25 minutes west.
First’s Excel bus runs every 30 minutes through the weekday between Norwich and Peterborough via Dereham, Swaffham and King’s Lynn. The first bus leaves the Market Place at 06:03 and reaches Norwich bus station at 07:12. In the middle of the day the trip takes 77 minutes. The last bus back leaves St Stephens Street in Norwich at 19:36. King’s Lynn’s transport interchange is about 38 minutes away.
Swaffham lost its railway station in 1968. The nearest station now is Downham Market, where Great Northern trains run to Ely in about 19 minutes, Cambridge in about 39 and on to London King’s Cross. The Central Connect 67 bus links Swaffham with Downham Market station eight times each weekday and takes 50 minutes. Most households still run a car.
Shops, pubs and doctors
The Saturday market goes back at least to 1215, when King John ordered it closed if it harmed the one at nearby Dunham; it survived. It runs from 8am to 2.30pm between April and September and until 2pm in winter. At 11am an auction bell rings for the general sale on the Stones outside the Greyhound. The Butter Cross in the middle of the square was given to the town by the Earl of Orford in 1783.
For the weekly shop there is a Waitrose on Castle Acre Road and a Tesco superstore at 15 Brocks Road, both on the northern edge of town, and an Iceland at 77-81 Market Place.
The George Hotel on Station Street is a former coaching inn. The Red Lion and the Greyhound are both on the Market Place; the Greyhound played the Startled Duck when ITV filmed Kingdom here in 2006. Strattons, a 14-room hotel, has a restaurant that cooks with local and seasonal produce.
The GP practice is the Campingland Surgery on Campingland. Swaffham Community Hospital on Sporle Road is run by Norfolk Community Health and Care and has no A&E. For that you go to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, about 20 minutes by car, or the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, about 45.
Broadband
We do not have a Swaffham-only figure. Across Breckland, thinkbroadband’s September 2026 data shows 75.52% of premises can get full fibre and 96.87% can get superfast speeds of 30 Mbps or more. Check the address on Ofcom’s broadband checker before you buy.
The town and the Brecks
The Church of St Peter and St Paul dates from 1454. Its double hammerbeam roof carries 192 carved wooden angels. Howard Carter, who found Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, spent much of his childhood in Swaffham, and the town museum has an Egyptology room about him.
The old EcoTech Centre on Turbine Way, with its wind turbine, opened in 1999, closed in June 2018 for financial reasons, and was sold in 2021 to the manufacturer Flexion Global.
Castle Acre Priory and Castle Acre Castle are about 5 miles north. The Peddars Way national trail passes through Castle Acre, and Thetford Forest lies to the south. The country around the town is the flat, sandy heath of the Brecks, which looks nothing like north Norfolk.
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How we produced this guide
Swaffham and Holt sale prices are from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, standard sales only, for the 12 months to June 2026. District and county averages are from the UK House Price Index, July 2026. Population is from the ONS 2021 Census parish profile. School details are from Ofsted reports and the Department for Education’s school register. Council tax is from Breckland Council’s 2026-27 setting (23 February 2026). Bus times are from the timetables on bustimes.org, checked on 24 September 2026. Drive times are typical times on the main roads. Broadband figures are from thinkbroadband. See our methodology page for source links.
Frequently asked questions
Is Swaffham a good place to live?
It suits people who want a market town with two supermarkets, a Saturday market and a GP surgery, and who do not commute to Norwich every day. The drawbacks are the distance to Norwich, the lack of a railway station and a secondary school that Ofsted says needs to improve achievement.
What is the average house price in Swaffham?
The median of the 163 standard sales HM Land Registry recorded in the 12 months to June 2026 was £253,000. Detached houses had a median of £318,750 and terraced houses £172,000.
How far is Swaffham from Norwich?
About 31 miles, or 40 to 50 minutes by car on the A47. The Excel bus runs every 30 minutes and takes 70 to 80 minutes.
What are the schools like in Swaffham?
Two of the three primaries are rated Good and the third, Swaffham Meadow, is a new academy not yet inspected. The Nicholas Hamond Academy (11 to 16) was graded “needs attention” for achievement and for curriculum and teaching in March 2026. There is no sixth form in town.
How big is Swaffham?
The parish had 8,565 residents at the 2021 Census. It sits on the A47 in Breckland, 12 miles east of King’s Lynn.
Related guides
Data sources: HM Land Registry, ONS Census 2021, Ofsted, Breckland Council, bustimes.org. Prices to June 2026; latest Ofsted inspections. Author: James Ward, Property and Money Editor.
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