About history, mainly local history of King's Lynn
From the outside, St Nicholas’ Chapel is impressive enough. Its long walls, enormous windows and slender spire announce a building of unusual ambition. Step through […]
Read moreChronological Timeline of King’s Lynn 1100 Years of King’s Lynn History Before 1100 – Lynn’s Saxon Beginnings c. 9th–11th centuries: A small coastal community forms […]
Read moreIn September 1331, the authorities in Bishop’s Lynn decided that something had to be done about the pigs. Too many were wandering through the streets, […]
Read moreThe statue of Charles I above Bank House may be older than the building supporting it. The vaults beneath the garden were discovered, forgotten, and […]
Read moreOn 11 July 1553, Sir Robert Dudley arrived in King’s Lynn with a demand. The town must recognise Lady Jane Grey as Queen of England. […]
Read moreIn Georgian King’s Lynn, the hardest wealth to tax was the wealth that moved. A house stood still. A field could be measured. Rent could […]
Read moreWhy does a giant whale stand beside the River Nar at the southern entrance to King’s Lynn? The answer lies beneath the grass. Harding’s Pits […]
Read moreThe house was locked. Emma de Beston was gone. When the royal official arrived to place her in her uncle’s custody, he found neither the […]
Read moreOn 22 April 1393, twenty-one buildings belonging to English merchants went up in flames. Their goods were seized, merchants were captured and ransomed, and valuable […]
Read moreA threat thirty miles up river On 6 January 1696, Edmund Hooke, mayor of King’s Lynn, appealed to William Russell, Duke of Bedford, about a […]
Read moreIn 1547, the government of the young Edward VI prepared to take the property of England’s chantries and religious guilds. King’s Lynn’s representatives in Parliament […]
Read moreThe red tower on Hardwick Road For more than fifty years, Campbell’s was one of the landmarks by which King’s Lynn announced itself. The factory […]
Read moreSt Margaret’s looks like a great medieval church, but look more closely. Its nave is largely Georgian, its floor is Victorian, medieval merchants lie beneath […]
Read moreBy the end of the nineteenth century, King’s Lynn could manufacture a locomotive, a steam traction engine, a fairground galloper, a marine boiler, and agricultural […]
Read moreMargery Kempe is usually remembered for her visions, her tears, and her extraordinary journeys. Yet one of the strongest threads running through The Book of Margery […]
Read moreA King’s Lynn tradition says that Edward Everard built a private ballroom at his house opposite St Margaret’s Church because he did not want his […]
Read moreThe iron numerals on the gable say 1635. Yet the little house beside St Nicholas’s Chapel is said to have belonged to a medieval exorcist. […]
Read moreStand in London Road and look south towards the South Gate. The broad street seems to belong to the medieval gateway. It runs straight towards […]
Read moreRecorded and possible visits to Lynn by monarchs, royal consorts, future monarchs, and two royal princes whose visits help to explain the reception given to […]
Read moreOn 18 November 1738, the Elizabeth was entered in King’s Lynn’s Town Dues Book. Part of her business looked unremarkable. Edward Everard, a leading Lynn merchant, was […]
Read moreThe name Herbert de Losinga looks straightforward. Medieval names containing de usually identify a person’s place of origin. William de Warenne came from Varenne, Robert de Beaumont […]
Read moreMarriott’s Warehouse has been standing beside the Great Ouse for so long that its familiar name is almost misleading. The Marriotts belong to only the […]
Read moreA steel rack crowded with fish stands beside Marriott’s Warehouse. Farther north, a bronze column measures the river’s rise. At the end of the quay, […]
Read moreOn 5 July 1832, the curate of St Margaret’s recorded the near destruction of one Lynn family. Mrs Ormiston had been buried on Monday afternoon. […]
Read moreIn April 1475 Edward IV transferred a collection of houses opposite St Margaret’s Church in Lynn to the German Hanseatic merchants. They acquired accommodation, storage […]
Read moreWhen King’s Lynn surrendered to Parliament on 16 September 1643, the immediate price of defeat was £3,200. The Corporation had to find the money to […]
Read moreThomas Thoresby intended to be remembered for ever. When the wealthy Lynn merchant died in 1510, he left behind a college beside St Margaret’s Church […]
Read moreA ship could run aground in the Wash and its crew might feel, for a few hours, that they had been lucky. As the tide […]
Read moreOn 15 September 1204, the morning after King John granted Lynn its royal charter, the town probably looked much as it had the day before. […]
Read moreThe book rather than the monument King’s Lynn has never lacked visible evidence of its medieval importance. The Guildhall still holds the eye. St Margaret’s, […]
Read moreIn the autumn of 1467, sailors from Bishop’s Lynn reached Iceland and killed the Danish king’s governor, Björn Þorleifsson. They plundered his household, burned buildings, […]
Read moreA refugee artist on the Tuesday Market Place In the mid-1950s, shoppers on King’s Lynn’s Tuesday Market Place may have noticed a thin, intense young […]
Read moreOn Wednesday, 11 May 1808, a new school opened in King’s Lynn for 230 boys. One master was expected to teach them all. Under conventional […]
Read moreStand in King Street or Queen Street and choose one of the most orderly Georgian façades. Now imagine removing it. Behind the sash windows and […]
Read moreKing’s Lynn’s history is written in movement. The town grew where river traffic could meet sea traffic, and where inland produce could be gathered, stored, […]
Read moreAll Saints’ Church looks stranded in the middle of Hillington Square, as though the medieval building were an afterthought in a modern housing development. The […]
Read moreA crowd with a heavy timber stood outside King’s Lynn’s gaol in December 1814. Inside were imprisoned sailors. Their supporters intended to batter down the […]
Read moreIn about 1091 Herbert de Losinga made William Rufus an extraordinary financial offer. Herbert became Bishop of Thetford, while his father, Robert, was installed as […]
Read moreBehind the former Methodist chapel near London Road stands a fragment of flint wall containing a broad, altered window. It is an unassuming remnant of […]
Read moreBehind Church Street, where Friarscot now looks across its quiet garden, there was once a narrow yard containing nine houses, three privies and enough foul […]
Read moreOn 2 April 1797, six transport vessels entered King’s Lynn harbour carrying about 900 French prisoners of war. Lynn was used to ships bringing coal, […]
Read moreThere is a curious mark on the brickwork of the Tuesday Market Place which generations of Lynn people have known as the Witch’s Heart. According […]
Read moreOn 11 July 1701, royal customs officers brought an embarrassing accusation before King’s Lynn Corporation. Men employed in the port had been taking bribes, falsifying […]
Read moreIn the summer of 1415, Henry V was preparing to invade France. Soldiers had to be paid, horses transported, provisions purchased and hundreds of ships […]
Read moreIn June 1688, King James II effectively sacked the government of King’s Lynn. Mayor Robert Sparrow was removed from office. So were five other aldermen, […]
Read moreStand on King’s Lynn’s quayside and the Great Ouse seems permanent. The town faces it, streets lead towards it, and for centuries ships have entered […]
Read moreAsk most people what happened to King’s Lynn’s Catholic past at the Reformation and you’ll likely get a single mental image: a mob, a market […]
Read moreIn March 1194, representatives of England’s Jewish communities met at Northampton. King Richard I had returned from captivity, and the Jews of England were ordered […]
Read moreA woman in an old civic chair In November 1925, Florence Ada Coxon became the first woman mayor of King’s Lynn. The borough had been […]
Read moreOn 15 January 1905, Ralph Vaughan Williams sat down at Cozens’ Temperance Hotel in King’s Lynn and wrote to his cousin. After mentioning plans to […]
Read moreIn 1800, King’s Lynn was still recognisably the town it had been for centuries. Ships crowded the river and quays, merchants traded from substantial houses […]
Read moreOn 18 June 1381, the king’s peace was formally proclaimed in Bishop’s Lynn. It did not work. According to evidence later given to royal justices, […]
Read moreThe lawns of St James’ Park cover one of King’s Lynn’s former burial grounds. Men, women, and children still lie beneath the grass, but the […]
Read moreNovels set in King’s Lynn have imagined the town as a Georgian port, medieval Bishop’s Lynn, a centre of queer working-class life, and the headquarters […]
Read moreOn 30 September 1538, two of Lynn’s religious houses surrendered to the Crown. At Whitefriars, Robert Newman, the prior, and ten companions signed. At Austin […]
Read moreKing John lost his most ambitious war without seeing its decisive battle. On Sunday, 27 July 1214, two armies met near the village of Bouvines, […]
Read moreIn 1881 the drinking water of King’s Lynn received an impurity score of 110. A month later it had improved dramatically, falling to 48. Within […]
Read moreIn late July 1608, a furious Dutch shipmaster stepped into one of the most uncomfortable episodes in the civic history of King’s Lynn. His name […]
Read moreThe history of Elsden’s Almshouses contains a date that refuses to behave. Later directories say that they were founded in 1842. The buildings in Friars […]
Read moreA quiet January night On Tuesday, 19 January 1915, King’s Lynn became part of a frightening new kind of war. The First World War was […]
Read moreWalk across the Tuesday Market Place from the Duke’s Head to the Corn Exchange and you pass between the sites of two vanished inns. The […]
Read moreHigh above the chancel arch in St Margaret’s Church, now King’s Lynn Minster, hangs a large, brightly painted royal coat of arms. At first sight, […]
Read moreIn the summer of 1216, soldiers supporting a French claimant to the English throne descended on Bishop’s Lynn. They captured townspeople, carried prisoners away and […]
Read moreThe town beneath the town King’s Lynn looks solid underfoot. Queen Street, King Street, Saturday Market Place, Tuesday Market Place, Pilot Street, Purfleet Quay, South […]
Read moreAccording to one of King’s Lynn’s most persistent stories, the East Gate met its fate because Catherine the Great bought too much art. In 1779, […]
Read moreRichard the Lionheart never needed to come to Bishop’s Lynn for his foreign policy to cause trouble there. By the later 1190s, Lynn was already […]
Read moreAn Election with Two Meanings The King’s Lynn riot of June 1822 was an election riot, but it was never only about one vacant seat. […]
Read moreSome buildings in King’s Lynn reward a second look. The Corn Exchange grabs you at once. Its front rises above Tuesday Market Place with columns, […]
Read moreQueen Street is one of the finest historic streets in King’s Lynn. Walk its length and almost every building hints at a different chapter in […]
Read moreIn the summer of 1765, a nine-year-old boy travelled by stagecoach from Norwich to King’s Lynn. He stayed for several days in the house of […]
Read moreA small courtyard of brick almshouses stands on Gaywood Road on the east side of King’s Lynn. Their low roofs, Dutch gables, and enclosed court […]
Read moreFramingham’s Almshouses in King’s Lynn stand beside The Walks, near the meeting of London Road and St James’s Road. Their quiet nineteenth-century buildings conceal a […]
Read moreIn September 1204, King John issued a charter to the burgesses of Lynn. The document still survives in the King’s Lynn Borough Archives, with part […]
Read moreIn September 1636, the official musicians of King’s Lynn asked the Corporation for financial help. The waits normally earned money by playing at civic ceremonies, […]
Read moreA little over two miles east of historic King’s Lynn stands the broken west wall of a medieval church. There is no village around it, […]
Read moreSamuel Gurney Cresswell is often described as the first Royal Navy officer to cross the North-West Passage. Yet HMS Investigator, the ship that carried him into […]
Read moreOn 22 April 1852, government inspector William Lee walked into Paradise Lane and recorded one of the starkest sentences ever written about Victorian King’s Lynn: […]
Read moreMargery Kempe’s Book did not simply appear. It was argued about, postponed, mistrusted, rewritten, and copied. Behind its survival stands a small cast of men […]
Read moreThe Pool Beneath the Pilot Office King’s Lynn has always had a gift for hiding excellent stories in perfectly ordinary places. On Common Staithe Quay, […]
Read moreA Market-Place Made by Water Tuesday Market Place is one of King’s Lynn’s great urban spaces, but it was never just a handsome square. Its […]
Read moreA ship in the channel On a December afternoon in 1889, the iron steamship Wick Bay grounded in the approaches to King’s Lynn. She was not an […]
Read moreBritain and France were not officially at war in the spring of 1755. In King’s Lynn, however, sailors were already fleeing and the mayor was […]
Read moreAt the east end of St Nicholas’ Chapel in King’s Lynn stands a great marble monument shaped like an urn. Designed by Robert Adam, it […]
Read moreIn a London street, sometime around 1416, a badly injured child saw a merchant passing through the crowd. “This is my father,” he cried. The […]
Read moreIn April 1337, Thomas de Melchebourn of Bishop’s Lynn supplied four anchors, three cables, and rope for one of Edward III’s great ships. Two months […]
Read moreThe road hides the river Thousands of vehicles pass through Southgates every day. Most drivers notice the medieval South Gate standing awkwardly in the middle […]
Read moreThe names in the books The old civic records of Lynn are not quiet books. They are full of boys sent into service, craftsmen taking […]
Read moreThe Headteacher Who Helped Preserve The Town At 28 Bridge Street stands one of King’s Lynn’s most remarkable historic buildings. Greenland Fishery was built in […]
Read moreA medieval king’s war could arrive in a town in several ways. It might arrive as a royal command, a tax demand, a requisitioned cargo, […]
Read moreKing’s Lynn’s Hanseatic past is often reduced to one striking survival: the Hanseatic warehouse by the river. That building matters, but it is only the […]
Read moreEast Anglia was one of the places where the Viking age in England became something more than raiding. Here, an English kingdom was broken, its […]
Read moreA short-lived friary King’s Lynn had several medieval friaries, but one of the least visible was the house of the Friars of the Sack. Their proper […]
Read moreKing’s Lynn is usually remembered as a port: quays, merchants, warehouses, grain, wine, timber, salt, coal, fishing boats, and foreign trade. That is true, but […]
Read moreIn July 1659, women from King’s Lynn and the surrounding countryside added their names to a national protest carrying an unusually blunt warning. Parliament had […]
Read moreThe building in the market place The Trinity Guildhall stands in one of the most telling positions in King’s Lynn. It faces Saturday Market Place, […]
Read moreIn 1549, Norfolk did not merely grumble. It rose. That summer produced one of the most serious popular uprisings of Tudor England. In Norfolk, what […]
Read moreA royal puzzle above the doorway Stand in Saturday Market Place and look up at the entrance porch of King’s Lynn Town Hall. High on […]
Read moreKing’s Lynn has never been a town of quiet religious uniformity. Behind the great parish church, beyond the formal world of bishops and parish order, […]
Read moreIn May 1205, the monks of Norwich gave up a town. That sounds dramatic, but the truth is more interesting. The monks did not abandon […]
Read moreFor centuries, one of England’s most powerful aristocratic families is said to have owned half of Lynn. It is a memorable claim. The bishop of […]
Read moreFor more than a century, anyone crossing the railway bridge on Gaywood Road could look down upon one of King’s Lynn’s great industrial workplaces. Inside […]
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