A courtyard house, the oldest part of the building is the 14th-century undercroft while further additions were made through to the 17th century by various merchants and mayors, most notably the Sotherton family, Francis Cock and Joseph Paine.

The house ended up in the hands of the Roman Catholic church before being bought by Leonard Bolingbroke, who converted it into a folk museum at the start of the 20th century.

The central courtyard, which was used as the entrance into the building, led into the undercroft and the porter's lodge allowed the regulation of goods and people into the area.

Thomas Sotherton, mayor in 1565, obtained a royal license for 24 Dutch and 6 Walloon families to move to Norwich to boost the textile industry with the introduction of new methods and goods.

The Strangers were also motivated to emigrate due to the anti-Protestant policies of Philip II of Spain, which resulted in between 50,000 and 300,000 refugees leaving the Low Countries.

[6][7][8][9] Leonard Bolingbroke suggested that the term "Strangers" does not refer to these immigrants, but instead to the fact that the hall was used as the residence of various visitors to the city in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The south wall was heightened to support a new roof, comprising tie-beams and shield spandrels decorated with Sotherton's merchant's mark and Saint George's Cross.

New stairs were built leading from the central courtyard into the hall via a new stone porch and porter's lodge, whose squint overlooked the entrance.

A new brick range was built in the south-east corner; this contained a parlour on the ground floor and chamber on the first, with mullion and transom windows overlooking the south courtyard,.

[22] The house came into the possession of Sir Lestrange Mordaunt, 1st Baronet (who was married to Thomas Sotherton II's widow Frances)[11] in 1610 and was sold in 1612 to grocer Francis Cock,[10] who became mayor in 1627.

In 1621, when remodelling the north range facing the street, he incorporated a fascia and new portal to the central courtyard, with an accompanying canopy with brackets depicting a lion and unicorn over a jettied first floor.

A bay protruding from the south wall was built to accommodate the staircase and doors leading to rooms on the east side were added to the gallery.

[27][28] The next 150 years of history for Strangers' Hall has been described as a "considerable mystery",[25] and King has noted that in the later 17th century, the house's status declined and it was divided into several tenements.

[25] A tenement came into the possession of the Roman Catholic church, whose priests constructed a chapel in the rear yard by St John's Alley; this is now the Maddermarket Theatre.

[25] By the 1890s, the building was empty and derelict and in 1896,[28] was put up for auction by the Catholics[25] in a lot with the nearby chapel and school, and sold for a price of £3,250,[32] despite a suggestion that it should come under the care of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society.

[35] In 1909, the hall was visited by a correspondent from The Times-Democrat based in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, who wrote the following:[36] Passing from the street through a handsome doorway, we find ourselves in a small courtyard.

Everything is so appropriate, so harmonious, that we feel as if we have somehow walked into some old picture, and it is with a sensation of being in a delicious dream that we pass into another apartment equally fascinating, prevaded in like manner with the atmosphere of long ago.In 1914, a replica of the hall featured at the Anglo-American Exposition in White City, Shepherd's Bush.

[38] In January 2023, during one deep clean of the premises, volunteers found charred remains of parish records dating back 250 years from St Bartholomew Church, a place of worship in the city which was bombed in 1942.

The museum's assistant curator of social history, Bethan Holdridge, theorised that the documents may have been misplaced at Strangers' Hall in 1994, following the fire at Norwich Central Library that year.

[39] Extensive woodworm was found in March 2023, and several pieces of antique furniture were moved to Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse for freezing, which eradicates the larvae.