page_title: King's Lynn
section_title: Modern
hierarchical_section_title: King's Lynn / History / Modern
caption_attribution_description: English: King's Lynn railway station in July 2017.
context_page_description: King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and locally as Lynn, is a seaport and market town in Norfolk, England, 98 miles north of London, 36 miles north-east of Peterborough, 44 miles north-north-east of Cambridge and 44 miles west of Norwich. The population is 42,800.
context_section_description: By the late 17th century, the town's decline was reversed by the somewhat late arrival of railway services in 1847, provided mainly by the Great Eastern Railway, subsequently the London and North Eastern Railway, running to Hunstanton, Dereham and Cambridge. The town was also served by the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway (M&GN), which had offices at Austin Street, and a station at South Lynn (now dismantled). This was also its operational control centre until relocation to Melton Constable. The former M&GN lines across Norfolk were closed to passengers in February 1959.
  The town's amenities continued to improve into the 20th century. A museum opened in 1904, and a public library in 1905. The first cinema, the Majestic, was officially opened on 23 May 1928. (The year is commemorated in a stained glass window on the front of the building.) The town council began a programme of regeneration in the 1930s.
  During World War I, King's Lynn was one of the first towns in Britain to suffer aerial bombing. On the night of 19 January 1915, the town was bombed by a naval Zeppelin, L4 (LZ 27), commanded by Captain Lieutenant Magnus von Platen-Hallermund. Eleven bombs were dropped, both incendiary and high explosive, doing extensive damage, killing two people in Bentinck Street, and injuring several others. When World War II began, it was assumed that King's Lynn would be safe from bombing, and many evacuees were sent from London but the town was not completely safe and suffered several raids.
  In 1962, King's Lynn was designated an overflow town for London and its population increased. New estates were built at the Woottons and Gaywood. The town centre was redeveloped in the 1960s and many old buildings destroyed. Lynnsport, a sports centre, opened in 1982. The corn exchange was converted into a theatre in 1996.
  The local breweries had closed by the 1950s, but new industries included food canning in the 1930s and soup-making in the 1950s. In the 1960s, the council tried to encourage development by building an industrial estate at Hardwick. The new industries that arrived included light engineering, clothing and chemicals and fishing remained important.
caption: King's Lynn railway station in July 2017
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