Kings Lynn History

In 1101 a charter was granted for a market between the rivers Purfleet and Mill Fleet. St. Margarets Church was built and trading started within her precincts at the Saturday markets. A prosperous town quickly flourished and some fifty years later a second charter to market was given meaning; there was a need to build a chapel of ease for St. Margarets and so St. Nicholas Chapel was built to serve a new district of Lynn, laid out around the new Tuesday Market place.

In 1204 a charter from Bishop John de Grey of Norwich meant, Lynn became Bishops Lynn. The town enjoyed continuing prosperity as its importance as a trading centre grew. The merchants imported wine, wood and fish, while exporting salt, wool and corn. Evidence of this period exists today in the attractive medieval merchants houses that surround the South Quay area and the oldest guildhall in the country, St. Georges Hall.

Henry VIII disapproved strongly of the Guilds and their religious associations and so the dissolution of the monasteries meant a name change for the town, as Bishops Lynn became Kings Lynn.