King’s Lynn All Saints, Norfolk Genealogy

England   Norfolk   Norfolk Parishes K-Z

Parish History
King's Lynn All Saints is an Ancient parish in the Diocese of Norfolk.

It is possibly the earliest church in Lynn and serves South Lynn. The site was occupied and the church incorporates an anchorite chapel where a group of anchoresses lived in seclusion as a hermitage in the 14th century when a tower was also added. This fell down in 1763 and the present church has been heavily damged by vandalism in recent years.

Nevertheless the Church is still a centre for Anglo-catholic worship and has a 1,000 year tradition of worship on the site.

The name "Lynn" has an ancient derivation, perhaps from a Celtic term meaning "pool" or from an Anglo-Saxon word for "torrent" both references to the estuary lake which emptied into the Wash. By the 14th century, the town ranked as the third port of England and is considered as important to England in Medieval times as Liverpool was during the Industrial Revolution. It retains two buildings that were warehouses of the Hanseatic League that were in use between the 15th and 17th centuries. They are the only remaining building structures of the Hanseatic League in England. The town now known as King's Lynn was, in medieval times, rather Bishop's Lynn. This is because it was taken under the wing of the Bishop of Norwich in the late eleventh century, one of the earliest of numerous deliberate seigneurial foundations of "new towns" that took place between that time and the mid-thirteenth century. When Henry VIII took over the lordship of the town it was renamed King's Lynn. However it is still referred to as Lynn locally and records often refer to it as Lynn, Bishop's Lynn, Lynn Regis and later as King's Lynn.

Here is an important 19th century jurisdictional and historical perspective for this ancient parish for researchers to consider:

"LYNN, KINGS-LYNN, or LYNN-REGIS All Saints, [also called South Lynn All Saints; registers begin in 1558], is a town, a parish, three sub-districts, and a district, in Norfolk. The town stands on the right bank of the river Ouse, at the junction of the Nar navigation, and a junction from Norwich, Ely, Hunstanton, Wisbeach, and Sutton, a few miles south and southeast extremity of the Wash, and 40 west by north of Norwich.

In the time of Richard I., it was much frequented by Jews, and had a good trade.

A curious cruciform Lady's Chapel stands at Red Mount; was built about 1482. An octagonal tower, Lady Chapel also called the Red Mount, was used formerly for both military and ecclesiastical purposes.

St. Margaret's church was founded in 1100 [parish registers start from 1562] as the church of a priory subordinate to Norwich. St. Nicholas' Church, now a chapel of ease to St. Margaret's, stands in St. Ann's Street [and its registers start in 1558]. St. John's church, in Blackfriars-road, was built in 1846. All Saints church, in Church-lane, the parish church of South Lynn [church registers begin in 1588], was thoroughly repaired in 1860; and had formerly a W tower, which fell in 1763.

An Independent Chapel in New Conduit-street was built [by 1822]; a Union Baptist chapel in Paradise Lane was built in 1859; two Baptist chapels are in Blackfriars-road; and one of them is a neat edifice of 1841; a Wesleyan Chapel in Tower-street was built [by 1797]; a Primitive Methodist Chapel in London-road was built in 1857;  a New Connexion Methodist Chapel in Railway Road was built in 1853; a Roman Catholic Chapel in London-road was built in 1844; and chapels also for Quakers [records begin from 1775], United Free Methodists, and Unitarians. The borough comprise the parishes of Lynn or St. Margaret and South Lynn or All Saints. A portion of the parish which had a pop. of 3,867 in 1861 was constituted a separate charge, under the name of St. John, in 1846. The head living is a vicarage, united with the chapelry of St. Nicholas, and with the rectory of North Lynn, and the living of St. John is a vicarage, in the diocese of Norwich.

Online Records
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

FamilySearch Collections

Images of the parish register for this and all of King's Lynn town parishes and chapels are available by clicking "Search", then "Browse All Published Records Collections (at FamilySearch.org) and are found under "England, Norfolk" (look alphabetically for South Lynn).

Records at the Norfolk Record Office

The parish is catalogued South Lynn by the Norfolk Record Office and the records are reference PD607/1-8, 14-21, 27-31