Hull and Hereabouts

Saturday, 15 December 2018

Good King John

OK so King John lost the Duchy of Normandy and other bits of France to the French king, and he caused the decline and fall of the Angevin Empire. He was so weak the mighty barons forced him into signing that wretched Magna Carta. Then he went and lost his treasure while crossing the marshes just before dying of dysentery leaving the country in a civil war. And in all children's history books and especially in that ongoing saga Robin Hood he is made out to be a bad guy scheming to get the crown while his handsome, brave, do-no-wrong brother Richard (he of the Lionheart) ponced around on crusades and caused mayhem where ever he sat down. Well all that counts for nothing in King's Lynn. King John is the king who granted the town a charter in 1204 which was the making of the place. And in Lynn, if in no other town in England, King John is very much the Good Guy.

This statue is in New Conduit Street.

And, as a footnote, if you are thinking King's Lynn is named after King John then think again. The charter was given to the town of Bishop's Lynn as in those days the Bishop of Norwich owned the place. If Henry VIII had managed to sire a male heir from his first wife the place might still be called Bishop's Lynn. But in the event he didn't and in his nationalisation of the Catholic church he took possession of the town and so it became King's Lynn in 1537.

Friday, 14 December 2018

The Purfleet, Customs House and Vancouver

Turning our backs to the river we come across what is now a little tourist attraction but was once a medieval harbour of sorts. This is the Purfleet, the old, and I do mean very old northern boundary of the town. I remember it being run down and seedy little car park back in the late 1970's when I first came to Lynn but it's been spruced up. The Customs House has been renovated and is now a Tourist Information office with a small museum upstairs (see below). Outside there's a statue of local lad Captain George Vancouver after whom the local shopping centre and a bit of Canada are named.

The Customs House was built in 1683 as both a merchants exchange and Customs office. By this time though Lynn as a port was in a bit of a decline with more and more shipping going through that evil place up north called Hull.

The bewigged person with his oh so subtle rod and dangling tassles is Charles II.

This is the Long Room upstairs in the Customs House.

This is to let us know who is in charge.

Some tools of the Customs trade

I was tempted by this long case clock but I really can't find the room for it at home ...

The pink bag is Margot's

In medieval times King's Lynn was in the Hanseatic league hence the models of Hanse vessels in the Long Room.

PS. I almost forgot this area appeared in a film, Revolution, starring (if that's the word) Al Pacino, Donald Sutherland and Nastassja Kinski with King Street and the Customs House pretending to be New York. If you haven't heard of it that's probably because it was a monumental flop at the box office. Here's a snippet from You Tube.

Thursday, 13 December 2018

"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Hull anymore..."

The Great Ouse

Due to circumstances that need not concern you we, that is Margot and myself, found ourselves in Margot's birth town, King's Lynn in good old Norfolk. So in the 24 hours or so that we were there we played the dutiful tourist and shot a shed load of photos while Margot caught up with friends she hadn't seen in over forty years. Over the next few days I'll post the best ones here. I'm starting with the river because without the river there would be no King's Lynn. This is the Great Ouse which flows northwards from Bedford up into the Wash. There is a Little Ouse apparently which runs into the Great and also another Ouse in York and one in Sussex that flows into the Channel. There may be other Ouses, it's a popular name for a river.