Norfolk Heritage Explorer

Location

Full description

Previously recorded under NHER 5480.

1951. Listed Grade II*.
Courthouse and prison, now offices and exhibition centre. 1784 by William Tuck. Gault brick with ashlar dressings. Plain tiled roof. Three storeys in five bays. Rusticated quoins and string courses between each floor. Central rusticated field rising into first floor to terminate in an open pediment: arched doorway to ground floor below a recessed panel containing iron shackles and chains. Under pediment is a barred lunette. This grille pattern repeated in fanlight of the panelled door. Fenestration of sashes with glazing bars and gauged skewback arches. Low parapet with a stone achievement bearing a sundial arm. Gabled roof with internal gable-end stacks.
Interior: Prison yard to rear entered through an iron-clad lattice door with original fittings. Rectangular yard enclosed by high walls of surrounding buildings now contains brick cell block of 1937. Within west and north walls of court are four 18th century cells. Round-headed brick openings contain iron-clad timber doors flanked by shuttered iron lattice grilles. Three western cells have groin-vaulted interiors, northern one has flat brick ceiling.
Information from (S1).
A. Cattermole (King's Lynn UAD), 11 February 2020.

December 1992-January 1993. Watching Brief.
Monitoring and salvage excavation.
In five areas within the Gaol.
Post medieval brick floor and footings uncovered and recorded. medieval door jamb base excavated and recorded. A small quantity of 14th and 15th century pottery was found in pipe trench. A large piece of carved masonry was found beneath modern floor in Gaol yard.
See report (S3) for further details. The results of this work are also summarised in (S4) and (S5).
S. Percival (NAU), 2 June 1993.

(S2) reports that the Gaol House was built in 1784, for the sum of £400, as the dwelling of the town gaoler. The design of its entrance doorway was influenced by the then newly built Newgate prison in London.
notes that in 1935 the Gaolhouse became the residence for the Police Superintendant.
In 1937 new cells were built in the old prison yard behind Gaolhouse.
This building was converted to a Tourist Information Centre in 1984 having been council offices for the previous two decades. It is now home to Stories of Lynn, a museum and archive centre.
A. Cattermole (King's Lynn UAD), 11 February 2020.

(S6) asserts that this tenement (rather than that to the west occupied by the Guildhall, NHER 5480) was in fact the site of the New Hall erected by the Trinity Gild in 1421. It was used as a college for the chaplains of the Gild until around 1510. In 1528 it became the site of the gaolhouse, and appears to have retained this function throughout the 17th and 18th centuries until being rebuilt in its current form in 1784.
See (S6) for further details.
A. Cattermole (King's Lynn UAD), 25 February 2020.

Monument Types

• COLLEGE OF SECULAR PRIESTS (Medieval to 16th Century - 1421 AD to 1510 AD)
• GAOL (16th Century to 18th Century - 1528 AD to 1784 AD?)
• COURT HOUSE (18th Century to Mid 20th Century - 1784 AD to 1935 AD?)
• GAOL (18th Century to Mid 20th Century - 1784 AD to 1935 AD?)
• POLICE HOUSE (Mid 20th Century - 1935 AD to 1935 AD?)
• CELL BLOCK (Mid 20th Century to 21st Century - 1937 AD to 2050 AD)
• INFORMATION CENTRE (Late 20th Century - 1984 AD to 1999 AD)
• MUSEUM (21st Century - 2017 AD to 2050 AD)

Associated Finds - none

Protected Status

• Listed Building

Sources and further reading

Related records