Harding's Pits
This park area covers five and a half acres, making it one of the largest of such developments in the country. It is It is managed by local residents through the Harding's Pits Community Association.
So why is it called Harding's Pits? William Derisley Harding was a King's Lynn engineer, surveyor and landowner in the early 19th century and he is known to have owned a brickworks in the area, the workings in which clay was dug for brick making and which were later used to dump rubbish.
Before that, in the 12th to 14th centuries, the Green was among the lands of the Whitefriars under the care of the Carmelite monks whose monastery gate still stands only a few yards away on the edge of the green.
In the 16th century the site formed part of the defences of the walled town. The rampart which rises across the Green towards the Great Whale sculpture follows the line of one of these defensive earthworks.
From the 16th to the 19th century the area close by the Green was home to the Lynn whaling industry where its ships were built and re-supplied.
In the First World War it was used to graze horses requisitioned by the army from farms all over Norfolk before trains carried them away from Lynn to draw big guns on the Western Front.
In the latter 20th century the area became the town's rubbish dump until it was rescued by the HPCA, which today cares for the area.