The Corn Exchange is a Grade II listed buildingStructure of particular architectural and/or historic interest deserving of special protection. in Fakenham, Norfolk, currently used as a cinema.[1] Completed in 1855, it was built by a group of local businessmen who in 1844 founded the Fakenham Corn Exchange and Public Rooms Company.[2] Prominent among the investors was Thomas Coke, 2nd Earl of Leicester, whose seat was at nearby Holkham Hall.[3]
The site selected for the construction of the corn exchange, in the centre of the Market Place, had been occupied by a market cross and sessions hall dating back to 1649, but which had been demolished in 1801.[4]
The exchange was designed by John Brown of Norwich and cost £4,000.[4] It is built of brick with stuccoed dressings, and its rounded corners have brick quoins
Any external angle or corner of a structure..[1] As well as the main hall used by traders, there was a magistrates’ courtroom and a library.[4]
The building was converted into a 700-seat cinema in 1932,[4] which closed in 1976. It was subsequently used as a bingo hall until the latter half of the 1990s.[5] After lying vacant and disused for a couple of years the exchange was restored as closely as possible to its original design and reopened as a cinema in 2000, known as the Central Cinema since 2017.[4]