Guildhall Of St George

A Guildhall of 1410-20 with a complex later history. End on to the street, a tile covered brick building 32.6m (107ft) long by 9.1m (30ft) wide forming part of a probably unique medieval complex on a long tenement strip running between King Street and the Great Ouse. The hall/theatre is at first floor level above an undercroft and a wide service passage on the south side. The roof is of closely-set scissor-braced trusses with high-set collars and modern metal tie rods every fifth truss. Four-centred traceried windows to each side and entrance front in freestone.

By 1945 the Hall was so dilapidated that demolition was only averted by private acquisition (plaque on inside of s. wall) enabling the Hall to become the theatre of the present arts centre. In 1948 sufficient remained of the 1766 playhouse which had been built within, for Richard Southern to make a complete reconstruction in model form, but the new theatre of 1951 was not a restoration of the Georgian form. The works of repair and adaptation carefully retained the archeology of the original building although the new timber stage masks the one remaining hammerbeam truss. Open to the magnificent roof, the proportionately long auditorium is raked and is gained by a seemly new timber staircase set beneath the great east window to the street. The proscenium is simple and bears an old carved coat of arms. The stage curtain is grey, the walls are whitened, the tip-up seating is red as are the window curtains. The 1951 works provided a new back-of-house extension.

Management of the arts centre was transferred from the local council to a trust in 2012. The arts centre closed on 31 December 2015 stating "it is now no longer financially viable to run such a complex venue on a largely free admission basis".

After some years of uncertainty and physical deterioration, there now seems to be hope of a brighter future for St George’s Guildhall. Shakespeare’s Guildhall Trust is working in partnership with the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk, which leases and manages the Guildhall, and the National Trust, which owns the Guildhall, to develop proposals for a sustainable future for the site.