Railways have been the ruin of King’s Lynn.  The merchant princes who once abounded in the town exist here no longer.  The last of the long race died quite recently.  Some ancient ledgers still exist in the town, which exhibit for one firm alone a turnover of something like a million and a half sterling per annum.  Although possessed of a similarly splendid waterway, unlike Ipswich, the trade of the town seems to have quite decayed.  Few signs of commerce are visible, except where the advent of branch stations of enterprising “Cash” firms has resulted in the squaring up of odd projections and consequent overthrow of certain ancient buildings.  There is one act of vandalism which the town has never ceased to regret and which should serve as a warning for the future.  This is the demolition of the house of Walter Coney, merchant, an unequalled specimen of fifteenth-century domestic architecture, which formerly stood at the corner of the Saturday Market Place and High Street.  So strongly was this edifice constructed that it was with the utmost difficulty that it was taken to pieces, in order to make room for the ugly range of white brick buildings which now stands upon its site.  But Lynn had an era of much prosperity during the rise of the Townshends, when the agricultural improvements brought about by the second Viscount introduced much wealth to Norfolk.  Such buildings as the Duke’s Head Hotel belong to the second Viscount’s time, and are indicative of the influx of visitors which the town enjoyed.  In the present day this hotel, though still a good-sized establishment, occupies only half the building which it formerly did.  An interesting oak staircase of fine proportions, though now much warped, may be seen here.

[Illustration:  Half-timbered House with early Fifteenth-century Doorway, King’s Lynn, Norfolk]

In olden days the Hanseatic League had an office here.  The Jews were plentiful and supplied capital—­you can find their traces in the name of the “Jews’ Lane Ward”—­and then came the industrious Flemings, who brought with them the art of weaving cloth and peculiar modes of building houses, so that Lynn looks almost like a little Dutch town.  The old guild life of Lynn was strong and vigorous, from its Merchant Guild to the humbler craft guilds, of which we are told that there have been no less than seventy-five.  Part of the old Guildhall, erected in 1421, with its chequered flint and stone gable still stands facing the market of St. Margaret with its Renaissance porch, and a bit of the guild hall of St. George the Martyr remains in King Street.  The custom-house, which was originally built as an exchange for the Lynn merchants, is a notable building, and has a statue of Charles II placed in a niche.

This was the earliest work of a local architect, Henry Bell, who is almost unknown.  He was mayor of King’s Lynn, and died in 1717, and his memory has been saved from oblivion by Mr. Beloe of that town, and is enshrined in Mr. Blomfield’s History of Renaissance Architecture:—­