Barn Elms replaced the earlier one occupied by Sir Francis Walsingham, "Elizabeth's Spymaster". Queen Elizabeth I would visit Barn Elms to see her Spymaster. Barn Elms features in English literary history from the time the royalist poet Abraham Cowley moved to the house belonging to John Cartwright in 1663. In the 1660s Barn Elms became a fashionable destination for boating picnics. Samuel Pepys, who arranged many a Sunday afternoon or moonlit evening boating party to Barn Elms himself, recorded that on 26 May 1667: "I walked the length of the Elmes, and with great pleasure saw some gallant ladies and people come
Walsingham have a further presence at the Church of the Holy Transfiguration, Great Walsingham, and also at the former Little Walsingham railway station which has been converted into the Russian Orthodox church of St Seraphim. Walsingham used to be connected to the railway network by the Norwich via Fakenham, Dereham and Wymondham route, but this was axed during the Beeching era in the late 1960s, in stages from 1964 to 1969. In 1979 work began on constructing a gauge heritage railway on the old track bed to Wells. The line re-opened in 1982 and now operates with a fleet of steam