Lynn, or KING'S LYNN, a seaport, parliamentary and municipal borough of Norfolk, at the mouth of the Great Ouse, 48 miles WNW. from Norwich and 99 N. by E. from London. It still retains traces of the ramparts and a fosse, which once guarded it on the landward side, and abounds in picturesque old timbered houses, ornamented with carved work. Of its four churches the principal are cruciform St Margaret's, varying in style from Norman to Perpendicular, and 240 feet long, with two towers, one of which till 1741 was surmounted by a spire 258 feet high—and St Nicholas (1146-74), with a modern spire (1869), which replaced one blown down in the same hurricane as that of St Margaret's. Other features of interest include the Red Mount Chapel, octagonal, noticeable for its richly-ornamented roof; the hexagonal tower of the Grey Friars; a grammar-school, founded in or before the reign of Henry VIII., at which Eugene Aram was once usher; a guildhall, in which is preserved the Red Register of Lynn, one of the earliest paper books in existence; custom-house (1683); hospital (1834-47); museum (1854), with a good collection of British birds; library (1883); and two extensive docks (1869-84), admitting vessels drawing 21 feet at spring-tides. A considerable trade is carried on in corn, oil-cake, coals, and timber, and large numbers of shrimps are caught and sent to London; but the imports of port wine, for which Lynn was formerly noted, have of late years much fallen off. In Edward I.'s reign it was one of the principal ports of the kingdom; in 1397 it ranked fifth amongst the towns contributing 'loans' to meet the royal necessities; in 1474 the Hanse merchants had a factory or 'steelyard' here; and in the first half of the 16th century it was a flourishing seat of cloth manufacture. In 1549, during Ket's (q.v.) rebellion, one body of the insurgents was encamped here, and in 1643, during the Civil War, the town capitulated to the parliamentary force after three weeks' resistance. King John (who in 1204 granted the town its first charter), the dowager-queen Isabel (a resident for twenty-eight years at Castle Rising, a few miles distant), Edward III., Henry
VI., Edward IV., Henry VII., and Oliver Cromwell all visited Lynn, which was the birthplace of John Capgrave the chronicler and of Bishop Keene; and the residence of the physician Sir William Browne, and of Dr Charles Burney. Pop. (1801) 10,096; (1891) 18,360. At Sandringham, miles N. by E. of Lynn, is a residence of the Prince of Wales, the house, completed in 1870, being in the Elizabethan style of architecture. See Richards' History of Lynn (2 vols. 1812).