The King's Lynn Preservation Trust Limited

 Progress on Clifton House

 Clifton House is the finest grand merchant house remaining in King’s Lynn.  Built alongside the River Great Ouse, its origins have been proved to date back to the 13th century.  Still existing are its medieval tiled floors and a vaulted 14C under croft.  In the early 17th century, a major refurbishment included the building of the 5-storey watchtower, one of several built around then and now the only remaining one.  In the 18th century, a further remodelling produced the house as we see it today.  After a number of different uses in later years, it was bought by the King’s Lynn Preservation Trust in 1996 and an extensive programme of repairs and renovation was completed before it was sold for use once again as a private residence, leaving the new owner to carry out the restoration of the interior.

Simon Thurley is restoring Clifton House back to be a single family house. In doing this the first stage was to thoroughly understand the history of the building and this involved taking off very small pieces of moulding, panelling and plasterboard.

In one of the upstairs rooms this proved to be rather an exciting process. The room had been covered over in plasterboard in 1982 and then papered in rather fetching blue flock wallpaper (see picture below). Underneath this, much to everyone’s surprise, was an entire room panelled in Jacobean oak. This panelling was probably added to the house in the 1620s by Thomas Snelling.
 

It had been papered over with fashionable wallpaper in the 1760s and then eventually hidden by plasterboard.
So the room had not really been seen in all its glory for about 200 years. The intention is now to repair the panelling and bring the room back to its former glory.  

It would be nice to think that Clifton House had more secrets to give up.

For further Images of Clifton House's Restoration Please Click Here