About history, mainly local history of King's Lynn
A 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 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 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 […]
Read moreSt Nicholas Chapel is one of the finest medieval buildings in King’s Lynn, but it is also one of the most revealing. It tells us […]
Read moreWhat sort of man acquired the name Richard Skin-the-Cat? Why was another Lynn resident known as William the Mellow? Was Agnes the Candlewife a candle seller, a candle maker, […]
Read moreOn the evening of 28 November 1848, a Norfolk farmer put on a disguise and went to Stanfield Hall. Within minutes, Isaac Jermy and his […]
Read moreThieves’ Bridge Road is an unsettling name for an otherwise quiet stretch of West Norfolk countryside. The road runs between Watlington and the Tottenhill area, […]
Read moreThe castle itself probably was not stormed. Its lord was. Early in the fourteenth century, Robert de Montalt left his great stone residence at Castle […]
Read moreA boat carrying grain arrives at Bishop’s Lynn from the Fenland waterways. Before its cargo can be sold, the merchant must hire an official measuring […]
Read moreDraining the Fens: The Great Transformation That Still Depends on Pumps The Fens look solid enough. Roads cross them, trains run through them and enormous […]
Read moreAickman’s Yard in King’s Lynn was once the entrance to an important nineteenth-century iron foundry established by John Aickman and David Menzies. Aickman’s Yard in […]
Read moreThe monument that looks like a boat In Hardwick Road Cemetery, King’s Lynn, there is a memorial unlike almost any other in the town. It […]
Read moreWalk from the Tuesday Market Place towards the Custom House and you pass through much of the history of King’s Lynn in less than a […]
Read moreAnyone passing Gaywood Hall today sees a nineteenth-century house standing among lawns and mature trees. Little above ground suggests that this was once the centre […]
Read moreIn fifteenth-century Lynn, “aliens” were changing what people drank. The word did not carry its modern science-fiction meaning. It was the legal term for anyone […]
Read moreA green plaque on the High Street On King’s Lynn’s High Street, a green plaque marks the house now associated with Robert Armin: 78 High […]
Read moreWho watched the Mayor? Who controlled Lynn’s money? And who had the right to check the men who governed it? The unrest that shook Lynn […]
Read moreOn Tuesday 27 October 1846, King’s Lynn became a railway town. A place that had spent centuries facing the Great Ouse, the Wash and the […]
Read moreA town that loved liberty, until liberty became dangerous In February 1771, John Wilkes came to King’s Lynn as one of the most famous political […]
Read moreStone has a special force in medieval miracle stories. It is heavy, visible, and public. A fever may leave little for witnesses to inspect; a […]
Read moreMedieval Bishop’s Lynn was not a quiet place. It was a port, market town and pilgrimage crossroads, with ships moving along the haven, carts passing […]
Read moreOn a summer evening two centuries ago, a small group of men left the edge of King’s Lynn and walked east toward a wooded clearing […]
Read moreKing’s Lynn did not begin with a public library. It began with books in churches, records in counting houses, papers in civic chests, and learned […]
Read moreA quiet row with a deeper history Priory Cottages in King’s Lynn are easy to underestimate. They stand in Priory Lane, close to the churchyard […]
Read moreA Norfolk MP in a National Panic The South Sea Bubble was not just a bad investment craze. It was a political and financial scandal […]
Read moreA forgotten figure in Lynn’s Civil War story The siege of King’s Lynn in 1643 is usually remembered through blockade, bombardment, divided loyalties and surrender. […]
Read moreNot born from nothing King’s Lynn did not begin as a medieval miracle beside an empty marsh. Long before Herbert de Losinga founded St Margaret’s […]
Read moreClifton House, King’s Lynn: a merchant mansion built in layers If you walk along Queen Street and glance up, Clifton House can seem almost too […]
Read moreStand on Purfleet Quay and you can still see why King’s Lynn became a port of consequence. The river meets the sea-world here, and the […]
Read moreIn 1303 some men from Lynn went to war in an unusual way. Bridges at Lynn: How Carpenters in Lynn Helped Edward I’s 1303 Campaign […]
Read moreThe Custom House, King’s Lynn: The Building That Announced a Port Few buildings in King’s Lynn declare the town’s old confidence more clearly than the […]
Read moreHunger on the Quay: When Bishop’s Lynn Stopped the Grain Ships A June day at the waterfront The grain was already on the move. On […]
Read moreIn 1805, the sudden death of William Richards’s twenty-eight year old wife led to his seven-year withdrawal from society. They had only been married for […]
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