Henry Bell has long enjoyed a minor but honourable place in the history of English architecture. His principal work—the Customs House at King’s Lynn — figures in every book on seventeenth-century architecture, and his status as a provincial designer of some accomplishment—first defined by Mr Geoffrey Webb in 1925—has lately been recognised both by Miss Margaret Whinney and by Sir John Summerson. Very little, however, has so far been known about his career: the nature of his training and even the means of his livelihood have been obscure: the dates of his birth and death have been wrongly stated ever since his monument was accidentally destroyed in 1741: his literary activities have been wholly forgotten: and one important episode in his architectural career has only recently been rediscovered. It is the purpose of this article to set out such facts about Henry Bell as the writers have succeeded in establishing from documentary evidence. Others will no doubt come to light in the future, but meanwhile the evidence here presented will, it is hoped, give a fuller and more accurate portrait of Bell than has hitherto been available to architectural historians.