Cherie's Place

A brief history quoted from an information pack in our room at Bank House:

Described by Nikolaus Pevsner as one of the finest houses in King’s Lynn, Bank House was built in the early 18th Century for one of the King’s Lynn’s many rich and successful merchants. The house is Grade II* listed and is recognised as a stunning example of an early Georgian house. Of particular note is the panelling on the ground and first floors, the mantlepiece in the Boardroom and the pediments over a couple of the bedroom doors on the first floor. In what we call, rather unromantically, the Purfleet, on the second floor, the panelling is much older and thought to date from an older building and to have been used in the present Bank House as out of date and suitable only for servants’ quarters

Underneath the house, extensive barrel roofed vaults extend down to the river where wine coming in from the continent would have been stored before being shipped on to Cambridge (for the colleges), ely and Bury (for the bishops) or ports to the North.

Situated so close the Custom House and the Purfleet, the house was at the centre of the trading area of King’s Lynn, and merchants would stand around King’s Staithe Square haggling over cargoes as they were landed. In the mid 1700’s Joseph Gurney realised the potential of the location and set up his first bank in the house, which was then christened Bank House. Around 1780 the Counting House was added on (which now houses the bar and River Room restaurant). In 1809 the bank narrowly avoided a “run” on it by its investors. One of the bank’s partners had to ride in haste to Norwich to bring back gold to reassure the customers! Gurneys recovered from this excitement to eventually become Barclays Bank today, and in 1869 moved to Tuesday Market Place.

Over the door stands a fine statue of an English king, thought to be either Charles I or James I. The statue is said to have arrived in a wheelbarrow looking for a home when its original home in Tuesday Market Place was demolished. Charles II stands on the Custom House.

Captain Samuel Gurney Cresswell, the arctic explorer who was one of the first party to sail the North West passage, was born in the house in 1827. He joined the Navy and went off to fight pirates in the China seas, at age 16. In 1850 he was appointed Second Lieutenant and ship’s artist on HMS Investigator during its expedition in search of the Northwest passage. The ship became stuck in the ice from September 1851 through to the Spring of 1853.

Tags: Kings Lynne, Norfolk, Portrait, Self Portrait, Vacation