‘Atkin’s Mansion’ was built in 1605 by wealthy merchant John Atkin, who was twice mayor of the borough. The house was built in a prominent position on what was then the main route into King’s Lynn from the south. It remained in the Atkin family until his grandson, Thomas Atkin ‘of London’, sold it. It was certainly a grand house, possibly the last great timber-framed house to be built in Lynn, with enormous brick chimney stacks. The first-floor hall ran the length of the building and was lit by oriel windows. The interior features an important series of Jacobean wall-paintings depicting the figures of Spes and Fides and Dives and Lazarus in Heaven and Hell seen here copied by Thomas Baines in 1864.
The house was subsequently divided into two, the southern portion becoming a public house called The Fisherman’s Arms or The Waterman’s Arms. By 1796, it had been renamed the The Greenland Fishery Inn to mark the importance of the whaling industry to the town during those years (1770s–1820s) when a small fleet was sent out to Greenland and the Davis Straits to fish for whales and seals. Later it was a private museum and is now a house. The property is owned by the King’s Lynn Preservation Trust.
Here an information board gives an overview of old South Lynn.