Museum Of Social History

The Museum of Social History in King's Lynn is a house, dating back to at least 1580 when it was timber-framed. In the late 1660s, the Rotterdam merchant Hubert Vinckesteyn purchased the property and rebuilt the rear wing around 1695 using brick. The street facade was remodelled with a coursed limestone skin, likely after 1715 when it belonged to Hubert van Vlierden. An early 19th-century rear staircase hall was added, along with other alterations. In 1814, a separate house over the carriage entrance was demolished, and the present structure was built as an integral part of No. 27. By 1750, the house had been converted into a bank, with the bank hall occupying the space now used for the carriage entrance.

The building has a three-story, five-bay facade. It features rusticated quoins. The central entrance has a fielded and panelled door with a diamond-glazed fanlight, surrounded by engaged Corinthian columns supporting a segmental pediment over a plain architrave. The mid-18th century sash windows have glazing bars; the ground-floor window surrounds have keystones and block or cavetto brackets below the sills, with similar brackets to the first-floor surrounds. The outer windows are under segmental pediments, the central window has a straight pediment with a carved frieze. A modillion eaves cornice runs under a low parapet that hides the roof. Stone stacks are located to the right and left. A 20th-century double timber door and a pedestrian doorway fill the carriageway on the right. The first floor contains a Venetian window with sashes and glazing bars, incorporating a series of roundels below the embracing arch, which is repeated at the rear.

The rear (west) wing, constructed from dark red brick with light red quoins to corners, window reveals, and window heads, likely dates to around 1695. It has six sash windows with glazing bars to the ground floor and seven to the first. Four of the first-floor windows have wave mouldings under the skewback arches. The front wall has a moulded red brick cornice that continues into the rear wing.

Inside, the facade’s entrance door leads to a passage and a rear staircase hall, past a panelled door with a four-vaned fanlight. The hall contains eight fluted Corinthian columns linked by architraves; an oval skylight is situated in the north-west segment, above an octagon and dot patterned floor. The staircase has stick balusters and a ramped, wreathed handrail. On the ground floor, the south room has large-frame panelling and an ovolo modillion cornice. The room above it is supported by two Tuscan columns and a coffered cornice. The adjacent north room also boasts large-frame panelling. This panelled feature continues in the first-floor rooms of the west wing. The rooms below in this wing feature 17th-century small-frame panelling, and one connecting door has a pediment above it.