Town in Norfolk, England
King's Lynn
A Norfolk port that was once a bishop's, then Henry VIII's, gave us the first autobiography in English and the explorer who put Vancouver on the map.
Key information
- County
- Norfolk
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 42,800 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- Medieval merchant port, Hanseatic warehouse, Custom House, Seahenge timbers, Valentine's Mart
- Famous people
- Margery Kempe, Fanny Burney, George Vancouver
- Football clubs
- King's Lynn Town (the Linnets)
About King's Lynn
The bishop's town that Henry VIII took
For centuries this place was called Bishop's Lynn, because the Bishops of Norwich owned it. Then came the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1537 Henry VIII took the town into royal hands and it became King's Lynn, a name it has kept ever since. The 'Lynn' part is thought to come from an old word for a pool or tidal lake, which suits a town built where the Great Ouse reaches the Wash.
A Hanseatic port in the Fens
In the Middle Ages Lynn was one of England's busiest ports. Grain, wool, salt and timber moved along rivers that reached deep into the Midlands, and ships carried it all across the North Sea. That trade tied the town to the Hanseatic League, the powerful network of merchant towns around the Baltic and North Sea. The proof is still standing. The Hanseatic Warehouse near St Margaret's Church is the only surviving Hanseatic League building in England, and the quaysides, alleys and merchants' houses around it give the old town its shape. The town also has two market squares, the Saturday Market Place and the Tuesday Market Place. The Tuesday one is home to the Valentine's Mart, a fair with medieval roots that still opens each February.
The woman who wrote the first English autobiography
Margery Kempe, born in Lynn around 1373, was the daughter of John Brunham, a merchant and mayor of Lynn. She ran an unsuccessful brewing business, had fourteen children and became a pilgrim who travelled as far as Jerusalem and Rome. She was also famous for loud, public weeping in church, which made her thoroughly unpopular with some of her neighbours. She dictated The Book of Margery Kempe, which is generally regarded as the first autobiography in the English language. Lynn produced other writers and adventurers. The novelist Fanny Burney was born here in 1752. In 1757 came George Vancouver, who sailed with Captain Cook and later charted the Pacific coast of North America. The Canadian city of Vancouver is named after him, and a statue of him stands outside the Custom House.
Landmarks on the waterfront
The Custom House, finished in 1683 and designed by the local architect Henry Bell, sits on Purfleet Quay and is one of the town's best-known buildings. Bell was also mayor of Lynn. Nearby is the Tuesday Market Place, and St Margaret's Church, whose twin towers rise above the town centre. St George's Guildhall, from the early 1400s, is the largest surviving medieval guildhall in England and now serves as an arts venue. The King's Lynn Festival, founded in 1951 by Ruth, Lady Fermoy, the grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales, fills it with music every summer. The Greyfriars Tower, a lone medieval tower left standing after the friary around it vanished, adds a leaning, ruined note to the skyline.
Seahenge, lost jewels and shrimps
Lynn Museum shows off the timbers of Seahenge, the Bronze Age circle found on the Norfolk coast at Holme-next-the-Sea in 1998. Tree-ring dating shows the oak was felled in 2049 BC. Legend says King John lost his crown jewels in the Wash in 1216 while crossing the tidal sands, shortly before he died. People have been hunting for them ever since, without success. The Wash still feeds the town's table. Brown shrimps, cockles and mussels are the local seafood, and the old fishermen's quarter at North End is home to the Fisherfolk Museum at True's Yard.
The Linnets at The Walks
King's Lynn Town Football Club, nicknamed the Linnets after the small songbird, play at The Walks, a ground beside the park of the same name that has been the club's home for generations. The town is also the gateway to north-west Norfolk, with Sandringham, King Charles III's privately owned estate, which has belonged to the royal family since 1862, a short drive away, and the Wash coast stretching out beyond.