Kings Lynn

King's Lynn town (1991 pop. 37,323), Norfolk, E England, on the Great Ouse River near its influx into The Wash, an inlet of the North Sea. Its large harbor serves foreign as well as coastal trade and is the base for a fishing fleet. A farm market, King's Lynn is a center for fertilizer production, canning, flour milling, beet-sugar refining, shipbuilding, metalworking, and light engineering. The town dates from Saxon times. Red Mount Chapel was visited by pilgrims in the 15th and 16th cent. Noteworthy are the many ancient buildings, in addition to the fairs that are still held there. A Norman church also remains, as do relics of a moat that surrounded the town in the 15th cent. King's Lynn was the birthplace of the novelist Fanny Burney and the mystic Margery Kempe .

King's Lynn, on the estuary of the Great Ouse (Norfolk), was for centuries one of England's major ports. It was developed by the first bishop of Norwich in the 1090s, and enlarged by the third bishop, each sector with its own church and market. Its trade was international in the Middle Ages, but mainly domestic from the 16th cent.

King's Lynn, on the estuary of the Great Ouse (Norfolk), was for centuries one of England's major ports. It was developed by the first bishop of Norwich in the 1090s, and enlarged by the third bishop, each sector with its own church and market. It was Bishop's Lynn from the 11th cent. to 1536, when Henry VIII acquired it and renamed it. Its trade was international in the Middle Ages, but mainly domestic from the 16th cent. Since the 1950s it has expanded, fortunately without much damaging its historic core, which is still grouped around its medieval guildhall, churches, and market-places.

David M. Palliser