316 listed buildings, 13 of them Grade I

Church of St MargaretGrade I listedGuildhall of St GeorgeGrade I listedThoresby CollegeGrade I listedGaywood War Memorial Clock TowerGrade II listedWhite Hart Public HouseGrade II listed+36See all photos

Photos from Wikimedia Commons and Geograph, copied to our own server, each credited to its photographer with its licence; names open the building’s page or its official list entry.

1805

c. 1870

Public domain, from Wikimedia Commons, copied to our own server. Each credit opens the image’s page with its full description and history.

Historic England lists buildings in three grades: Grade I for buildings of exceptional interest (about 2.5% of all listed buildings), Grade II* for particularly important buildings of more than special interest (about 5.8%), and Grade II for buildings of special interest (about 91.7%). Listing protects the whole building, inside and out.

Every entry on the National Heritage List for England whose point lies inside the ONS 2022 built-up-area boundary. One list entry can cover a terrace or a group of buildings. Neighbourhood dots: the population-weighted centre of each Census 2021 output area, coloured by its neighbourhood’s (LSOA’s) share of homes built before 1919 (Valuation Office Agency, March 2025).

King Street23 listed · 1 Grade I · 3 II*

High Street17 listed · 1 II*

St James' Street16 listed

London Road10 listed

Norfolk Street10 listed

Nelson Street9 listed · 3 II*

Tuesday Market Place9 listed · 1 II*

All Saints Street7 listed

Bridge Street7 listed

Queen Street7 listed · 2 II*

Saturday Market Place6 listed

Pilot Street3 listed · 1 II*

Of the 316 entries, 169 are named by a street address; the rest are named buildings such as churches, halls and bridges.

Search the rest on Historic England’s list →

Historic England’s conservation areas layer, supplied by councils (incomplete in places, so a page fact, never graded). Hectares are the part of each area inside the built-up area.

The first 139 entries were listed in 1951, 12 of the 13 Grade I buildings among them. Only 7 have been added in the last 15 years.

9 scheduled monuments

Nationally important archaeological sites and monuments, protected by law; work on them needs consent from the Secretary of State, advised by Historic England.

Greyfriars Tower

Littleport Street Bridge

MedievalMedieval town walls

Portion of town walls in Kettlewell Lane

MedievalPost-medieval defences

Red Mount Chapel, The Walk

The Former South Gate and Southgates Bridge

Town wall beside Wyatt Street

Whitefriars Gateway, South Lynn

1 registered park or garden

The Walks, King's LynnGrade II

Two measures, each ranked against every UK town of 1,000 or more, with protected heritage counting twice as much as the age of homes. Protected heritage counts each listed building by its grade (Grade I three points, II* two, II one), each scheduled monument and battlefield two, and each registered park or garden by its grade; it is ranked both per 10,000 residents and as a total, so a village with one fine church doesn’t outrank a historic city. The second measure is the share of homes built before 1919, from the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax records. History is a character grade: it describes the town and isn’t part of the overall grade.

Margery Kempe

Robert Barnes

John Mason

Benjamin Keene

George Vancouver

Frances Burney

Sarah Burney

Samuel Lane

Francis Goodwin

Edward Villiers Rippingille

Hamnet Holditch

Charles Wycliffe Goodwin

Thomas Baines

Samuel Gurney Cresswell

Charles Bagge Plowright

George Gordon Coulton

Stanley Arthur Cook

Clara Dow

Joseph Dines

Mary Winearls Porter

13501500165018001950

George Vancouver1750–1798 · English naval explorer (1757–1798)

Frances Burney1752–1840 · English satirical novelist, diarist, playwright (1752-1840)

MK

Margery Kempe1373– · British Christian mystic and author

Thomas Baines1820–1875 · British expedition artist (1820-1875)

Joseph Dines1886–1918 · English footballer (1886–1918)

RB

Robert Barnes1495–1540 · English martyr

Sarah Burney1772–1844 · English novelist (1772-1844)

Charles Wycliffe Goodwin1817–1878 · British judge and Egyptologist

Everyone born in King's Lynn → Birthplaces from Wikidata; portraits from Wikimedia Commons.

Per resident, King's Lynn has more listed heritage than 82% of UK towns. All told, the list holds 316 listed buildings, 13 of them Grade I, including King's Lynn Minster. Clifton House sits at the heart of it all, with 10 of the town’s Grade I buildings within 400 m. Only 9 of the 230 towns nearest its size have more Grade I buildings.

On King Street alone there are 23 listed buildings. A conservation area has protected part of it since 1969. Of the whole list, 69% are houses, terraces and villas. Beyond that, 15% of its homes were built before 1919, close to the 15% in the typical UK town.