NHER 62896 (Building record) - Former Retreat public house, John Kennedy Road

(S1) describes this two-storey former public house as a nearly square building with hipped slate roof and
chimney at eaves level on street front, entrance at side. Rendered but early photographs show a brick
building. All windows replaced with PVC. Formerly in Pilot Street until John Kennedy Road cut through in 1963. On the north-west corner of street front is the old Pilot Street sign (white letters on blue metal).
Formerly the Tilden Smith until 1974 (named after a boat calling at Lynn in the 1860s according to a notebook in Lynn Museum collection) but also previously known as The Blockhouse, standing immediately on the bank of the old fleet later covered by the Docks Railway and reputedly built on piles.
A green plaque on the outside of the building commemorates a visit by the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1905 when he was collecting folk songs from fisherfolk in this area.
A. Cattermole (King's Lynn UAD), 25 June 2019.