King's Lynn: Greenland Fishery for sale for £400,000

King's Lynn Preservation Trust has put the Greenland Fishery on the market, offering a 999-year lease for £400,000.

Inside the Greenland Fishery in King's Lynn (Image: Landles)

It says it hopes to provide a sustainable future for the building near the river on Bridge Street, which it took on and began restoring in 1997.

"Since completing the conservation works KLPT has let the building on a series of leases but it has become apparent that short-term leases are not appropriate for securing the building’s long-term future and it has been vacant for much of the time," a spokesman for the trust said. 

The Greenland Fishery, which is being offered for sale (Image: Matthew Usher)

"Given its legal protection through its listing, its inclusion in the town’s conservation area and the structural work done by the trust, the trust feels that it is the right time for it to take on a new role.

"We are seeking to grant a new long lease or possibly sell the building to someone capable of fulfilling the obligations to maintain and preserve the building."

A plaque commemorating the history of the Greenland Fishery (Image: Matthew Usher)

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Agents Landles say it offers "a wealth of original features" which include Jacobean wall paintings in one of its bedrooms.

One of the Jacobean wall paintings in the Greenland Fishery (Image: Matthew Usher)

The building is currently arranged in two self-contained units – a large two-bedroom residence, alongside offices set over three floors.

A Boat Going on the Tail of a Fish, by JD Harding, 1822 (Image: Lynn Museum, Norfolk Museums Service)

Originally built in the 1600s as a wealthy merchant's house, it became a whalers' tavern in the mid-18th century, when oil from the creatures' blubber was used in lamps.

A whaling ship on a sign at the Greenland Fishery (Image: Matthew Usher)

Whalers set out from Lynn and would return up the Ouse towing their catch behind them until gas lighting came to town in the 19th Century.

A Lynn Whaler by George Laidman, 1938 (Image: Lynn Museum, Norfolk Museums Service)

After a spell as a museum, the building survived neglect and a near miss from a Second World War bomb before it was taken on by the preservation trust in 1997.

Inside the Greenland Fishery in King's Lynn (Image: Landles)

The interior of the Greenland Fishery (Image: Landles)