Norfolk has many hidden histories, tales of people and communities now lost and forgotten. World history, they say, is written by the victors, but local history is preserved in the memories of the people. True’s Yard is a small community-driven museum in King’s Lynn where the history of the town’s North End is kept alive. Many of those who run True’s Yard are descendants of the fisherfolk whose lives are celebrated here. This fascinating heritage site takes you on a journey through a once thriving community, when hundreds of families lived in the shadow of the medieval Chapel of St Nicholas. True’s Yard is a unique social history of life in a world that was hard and often short and champions collecting oral history from the public.

The North Enders were self-reliant fishing families, largely socially excluded from the rest of the town. They built their own boats and had their own sailmakers, bakehouses, school and pubs. Supporting each other in times of crisis, their births, marriages and deaths rarely involved anyone beyond the boundaries of the North End, even though the men, in their colourful gansies (jumpers), often sailed hundred miles from their homes in search of a good catch.

The buildings themselves are notable, as not many working class dwellings survive from Georgian times. Back in 1802 two of the original four cottages that once existed on the museum site were owned by a Mr William True, whose name is honoured by True’s Yard Museum.