The King's Lynn Preservation Trust Limited

A  Brief History

Patron

The Earl of Leicester

Founded in 1958 by Lady Joan Evershed.

 Established as an industrial and provident society.

Has completed renovation on over dozen projects.

The Greenland Fishery
Plotting its Restoration
The house was built in 1605 by John Atkin, merchant and four times Mayor of Lynn. It appears it was in the family’s possession until 1660 when his grandson, Thomas, sold it.

The building seems to have been divided into two at an early stage when the southern portion became a public house, called either “The Watermen’s Arms” or “The Fishermen’s Arms”. But it was later renamed for sailors in the whaling industry, which was of major importance to the town’s economy until the arrival of coal gas lighting in the 19th century
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It is Grade II* listed and is thought to be one of the last timberframed buildings to have been erected in King’s Lynn.  The interior features an important series of Jacobean wall-paintings..

 By 1796 it had been renamed the Greenland Fishery reflecting the town’s  whaling industry, which was based in the nearby River Nar.  This industry was important to the town until the arrival of coal gas lighting in 1825.

 By the early twentieth century the whole property had fallen into disrepair and was threatened with demolition. Fortunately it was purchased by Edward Milligen Beloe, son of the antiquarian lawyer of the same name. Beloe converted the building into the Greenland Fishery Museum which he opened in 1912 . After his death  in 1932, his widow sold the building and its contents to the Norfolk Archeological Trust and the Borough Council jointly.

 In 1941 a German bomb damaged the rear of the building whereupon a major part of the archaelogical collection was transferred to the town museum in Market Street. After the war, the building was divided and restored for office and domestic use.  The first tenants moved in in 1951 and the last residential tenant departed in 1992.  The last commercial tenant vacated the premises in 2006.
 

In 1996 the Norfolk Archealogical Trust sold the property to the King’s Lynn Preservation Trust ,which is now in the process of restoring it for commercial use.