Tucked into the curve of Nelson Street stands one of King’s Lynn’s most stubborn survivors. Known for much of its life as The Valiant Sailor, this Grade II timber-framed house has been altered, subdivided, and rejoined over more than five centuries. Its irregular frontage, coved jetty, and curious dragon post all speak to a building that has resisted both demolition and easy explanation.
Photo © James Rye 2021
Origins and Early Structure
The story begins in the late fifteenth century. In 1487 Katerine Pierson bought the freehold from Rose Plokett, a transaction that predates the dissolution of St Margaret’s Priory and suggests that the site was already privately held. Within decades it was drawn into the Priory’s orbit, and after the Reformation it passed, like much of the monastic property in Lynn, to the Dean and Chapter of Norwich. The earliest surviving timbers appear to date from around 1540–1550, consistent with the rebuilding or adaptation that followed the Priory’s clearance.
The house belongs to the family of small urban buildings that proliferated in Lynn in the mid-sixteenth century: timber-framed with a rendered and colour-washed exterior, deep jetties overhanging the street, and a mixture of domestic and commercial use. Its curved site on the west side of Nelson Street makes the plan awkward but distinctive. The facade was once part of an open arcade with three shuttered shop bays, traces of which remain in the blocked openings and rebated jambs along the west wall. Above, the timber frame incorporates widely spaced studs and arched braces, with brick infill at the rear.
The most striking feature is the north-west corner, where a moulded dragon post supports the jetty. Behind it is a small carved oak panel depicting what appears to be the Annunciation – an odd survival in a domestic setting, and perhaps reused from a religious building. Although local lore has occasionally claimed that the post was a ship’s mast, there is no evidence for this, and the claim belongs to the same romantic tradition that once ascribed sea timbers to every weathered beam near a harbour. As James Wright has recently shown in Historic Building Mythbusting (2024), such stories, though appealing, rarely withstand inspection.
Adaptation and Resilience
From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries the building evolved in response to changing uses. Internally, the heavy bridging beams of the ground floor were scarf-jointed and reworked, while doorways and windows were repeatedly sealed and reopened. The roof structure was rebuilt at least twice: the northern section was replaced entirely, and the southern end raised to a higher pitch, giving the building its present uneven roofline. These alterations, far from erasing the building’s character, record a pattern of continual occupation and adjustment typical of Lynn’s older streets.
Plans to remove or even demolish The Valiant Sailor came more than once. The Paving Commissioners’ scheme of 1805 proposed clearing the site altogether, while a later plan of 1816 suggested cutting back the jettied upper storey to widen the street. Both were ignored by the Dean and Chapter, who still owned the freehold. The building thus survived the nineteenth century’s enthusiasm for “improvement” largely intact.
From Public House to Private House
By 1728 the property was trading as The Valiant Sailor Inn, a name that would remain for nearly two centuries. Its street-facing rooms served as the bar and public area, while the upper floors housed the licensee’s family and lodgers. The inn must have been crowded: the 1841 census lists twenty-five people living on the premises, including servants and sailors.
Although the social history of the inn belongs to another study, its architecture continued to evolve during this period. The sash windows with glazing bars, now a defining feature of the front elevation, probably replaced earlier casements around the early nineteenth century. A four-light diamond-mullioned window with a central king mullion survives towards the north end, a reminder of the building’s Tudor origins amidst later Georgian refinements.
The rear of the property, with its heavy scantling timbers and whitewashed brickwork, was likely refaced in the eighteenth century. The tiled and slated roofs mark a boundary between two phases: plain clay tiles to the south, slate to the north, probably introduced when the northern section was repaired after flooding or subsidence.
Listing and Later Conservation
The house was listed in December 1951, one of the earliest in King’s Lynn to receive statutory protection. The Grade II status reflects its architectural and historical interest, particularly the survival of sixteenth-century framing and the rare combination of shop arcade and domestic accommodation. The listing text, last amended in 1993, describes a “shop and house, formerly a public house, now wholly domestic,” and records the key surviving structural elements: the moulded dragon beam, the rebated shop openings, and the mixed roof forms.
Flooding has repeatedly threatened the building. In 1953 the tidal surge reached three feet inside, delaying the move-in of the artist Walter Dexter. A later flood in 1978 reached two feet. These events prompted repairs that, while necessary, inevitably altered the interior fabric. The original floorboards in the north end, once laid directly on the earth, were replaced with tiles to resist future water damage.
In 1974 restoration work under Dr Elizabeth Harrison’s ownership uncovered two sealed dormer windows in the attic. Working with a conservation architect and the Borough’s heritage officers, she reinstated the attic rooms with a new staircase, respecting the surviving timbers. Her stewardship preserved much of the structure through difficult years when many timber-framed houses were modernised beyond recognition.
Photo © James Rye 2021
Fabric and Significance
Architecturally, The Valiant Sailor is a surviving manuscript of late medieval and post-medieval building practice. The framing technique, with its deep jetty and dragon post, represents a tradition of craftsmanship that persisted in Lynn long after it had disappeared from larger cities. The use of scarf joints in the principal beams shows adaptation and reuse of timbers, probably from earlier structures on or near the site.
The interior arcade along the west wall is a particularly important feature, suggesting that the building’s ground floor once functioned as a shopfront open to the street – perhaps a clothier’s or merchant’s premises before its life as an inn. The rebates for shutters in both the lower and upper panels indicate a method of closing the bays at night, a rare survival of pre-glazed commercial architecture.
The evolution of the roof demonstrates the pragmatic flexibility of Lynn’s builders. When the southern section was rebuilt on a higher line, rather than matching the old pitch, they simply adapted the ridge and gable, producing the uneven silhouette visible today. This kind of irregularity, far from a flaw, is a record of the building’s resilience and adaptation to changing materials and tastes.
A Survivor on Nelson Street
Seen from the street today, The Valiant Sailor looks at once fragile and defiant. The deep coved jetty casts a soft shadow across the rendered facade, while the dragon post anchors the corner with a sculptural presence that few passers-by notice. The building’s curved alignment, following the bend of Nelson Street, reminds us that this was once Lath Street, a lane leading from the medieval riverfront to the marketplace. It is a fragment of the town’s earlier street geometry, preserved by accident rather than design.
Despite the losses and alterations, the building remains one of the most complete examples of a sixteenth-century timber-framed house in King’s Lynn. Its survival tells a local story of persistence against fashion and flood, but it also stands as evidence of the town’s long continuity of craftsmanship. Each change of owner, each repair and subdivision, has left its mark in the grain of the wood and the rhythm of the windows.
No dendrochronological survey has yet been undertaken, but such a study would undoubtedly reveal a complex history of reuse, extension, and renewal. Until then, The Valiant Sailor continues to guard its secrets – a building that has outlasted every attempt to simplify or erase it.
© James Rye 2026
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Reading List (Alphabetical)
- Berthoud, Peter (2025). Notes on the Valiant Sailor. (Shared with King’s Lynn Town Guides)
- Harrison, Roger. Research notes on the ownership and leases of The Valiant Sailor (unpublished).
- Historic England. List Entry for 2 Nelson Street, King’s Lynn (1195431), amended 26 July 1993.
- King’s Lynn Borough Archives. Deeds and plans relating to 2 Nelson Street, including Paving Commissioners’ proposals (1805, 1816).
- Norwich Dean and Chapter Records. Lease and freehold documents for former Priory properties, 1538–1885.
- Paton, Charlotte (2014). A Portrait of Walter Dexter: Artist of King’s Lynn 1876–1958. Larks Press.
- Wright, James (2024). Historic Building Mythbusting: Uncovering Folklore, History and Archaeology. The History Press.