True's Yard Fisherfolk Museum facts for kids
True’s Yard Fisherfolk Museum is a special place in King's Lynn, Norfolk. It's a museum that tells the amazing story of the old North End fishing area of King's Lynn. This museum is run mostly by volunteers, who are people who give their time for free because they care about the history. It shows what life was like for the fishing families who lived there long ago. Many of the old houses in the North End were taken down in the 1930s and 1960s to make way for new buildings.
Discover True's Yard Fisherfolk Museum
True's Yard is a "social history museum." This means it focuses on the everyday lives of ordinary people from the past. It helps us understand how families lived, worked, and played in the fishing community. The museum keeps these stories alive for new generations.
Life in the Old Cottages
The museum shows you what the old cottages were like. They were very small, usually with just two rooms: one upstairs and one downstairs. Imagine a family of eleven people living in one of these tiny homes! In cottage number 5, nine children had to sleep "top to tail" in just one double bed. Their parents slept on the floor. There were no indoor toilets back then. Families used a special pot called a chamber pot under the bed.
The Historic Smokehouse
The museum also has an old smokehouse. This smokehouse was opened in the 1890s by a retired fisherman named Thomas Westwood. He ran it with his wife, Mary, and their five children. They also had a fish shop in the front of their house. They sold fish that they smoked right there in the smokehouse at the back.
One very popular smoked fish in the North End was called a 'bloater'. This was a herring fish that was smoked whole. Smoking fish helped to preserve it so it would last longer before refrigerators were common.
