purely of a local character, that had not the excellent work
he did in his native town survived, it is probable that his
name would never have come down to us, and that he would
have been one of that numerous band of men whose foot-
prints on the sands of time have been long since entirely
obliterated. ¹

Bell had at least one thing in common with Wren in that
he appears to have received no specific architectural train-
ing; indeed, his earlier years were devoted to mastering the
art of engraving, in which he made excellent progress, as is
shown by some of his prints of various parts of Lynn and its
neighbourhood, and it is probable that the examination of
the buildings of his native town for the purposes of this work
drew his attention gradually to the study of that architecture
in which he afterwards excelled to a remarkable degree.

Henry Bell was born at King's Lynn in 1653, and was,
in all probability, the son of another Henry Bell, twice
mayor of Lynn, who died in 1686, and who was descended
from a younger son of Sir Robert Bell, chief baron of the
Exchequer in the reign of Elizabeth. About his education
or early years nothing is known. That he must, however,
have laid aside engraving for architecture early, is proved
by the fact that in 1681, or as some say, 1683, he designed
Lynn Exchange or Custom House which was erected at
the expense of Sir John Turner. In an account of King's
Lynn published in 1818, this building is described as being
"of handsome freestone, with two tiers of pilasters, the
lower in the Doric, and the upper in the Ionic order, with
a small open turret, terminating in a pinnacle." A statue
of Charles II. graced the front, and the interior of the
building consisted of several large rooms; the whole being
surmounted by an open turret on Corinthian pillars,
and completed by an obelisk crowned with a ball on which
stood a statue of Fame.

The sense of proportion indicated in the building, and
also the delicate nature of the details, are surprising in the

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