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  • Wells-next-the-Sea : Golden Fleece

    Wells-next-the-Sea : Golden Fleece

    I’ve decided to write about this pub as Roy did get a drink here, but I think it’s fair to say that this venue isn’t really targeted at me. That’s not necessarily a criticism in itself, as pubs have to appeal to rather more people than just me, inconvenient though that may be for them.

    There are decent views over the quay and the venue has a prominent location in the town. The venue has a long history, it has been a licensed premises since the middle of the eighteenth century and in more recent times it became part of the Bullards, then Watney Mann, then Pubmaster and then Punch Pubs estate. The listed building notes mention:

    “Early C18, much modernised. Brick and pantiled. Front, pebbled and plastered. 2 storey and attics. 3 casement dormers. Eaves cornice. 2 sash windows with glazing bars remain at 1st floor, altered centre window with casement. Rusticated quoins. Dutch gable. Interior: oak open stair well said to be included.”

    So it seems much has been lost internally, likely a long time ago, and it did feel a little soulless inside.

    Jen had disappeared at some point and returned with what can only reasonably be described as an enormous ice cream from somewhere nearby. She then stood peering through the pub window while eating it. Roy and I decided that asking questions would probably only encourage matters, so we left her to it and didn’t say anything.

    I was marginally amused that the menus on the tables advertise these bar snacks. A customer tried to order them and was told in quite a direct manner:

    “It’s Sunday, you can’t order bar snacks”

    I’m afraid I’m with the customer, it’s a little sub-optimal to be dismissive of someone trying to order food as it doesn’t say anything that they can’t be ordered on a Sunday.

    The beer range was fairly generic and there wasn’t anything that particularly excited and delighted me, so I decided against ordering a drink myself. It does feel a shame that there’s no attempt at localisation here at all, even the real ale that they didn’t have is a generic national offering. CAMRA notes that real ale is often unavailable and it’s only ever Timothy Taylor’s Landlord when it is available. It’s also card only, which I have no view on, but I’d say that’s quite brave for a venue of this size.

    Ultimately, it’s positive that the pub remains open in such a prominent location and is contributing to the life of the town. It was busy enough to suggest that plenty of people appreciate what it offers, which is considerably more important to its future than whether I personally felt an overwhelming urge to move in. Roy got his drink, Jen had acquired an ice cream of almost architectural proportions from somewhere and I had obtained another blog post, so everyone emerged from the experience with something.

  • Wells-next-the-Sea : Norfolk Bottle Shop

    Wells-next-the-Sea : Norfolk Bottle Shop

    Next on our tour was the Norfolk Bottle Shop, located near to Wells-next-the-Sea and pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It’s great if you want to get away from it all, but as someone who likes “all”, it’s not my natural habitat. My first concern as we were driving into a farm was that I wouldn’t have a mobile signal for Untappd, but, fortunately, it transpired it was better than the signal that I get in Norwich.

    There were plenty of bottles available from a range of different breweries.

    I don’t like differential pricing like this, I’d rather half a pint was half the price of a full pint. If it had been, I would have tried halves of two different beers. Anyway, I don’t want to sound like a CAMRA obsessive with this and so I won’t digress far as otherwise this is exactly the sort of minor pricing issue that can occupy me for considerably longer than would be considered healthy by most normal people. There were four beers from the Malt Coast Brewery and this is effectively their taproom, with the service being friendly and welcoming.

    I went for half a pint of the Malt Coast IPA and it was piney and bitter, although I’m not sure that it was entirely well rounded. Incidentally, my drink was considerably over-poured so I was surprised and delighted.

    The indoors seating areas and there is an apology for the swallows’ nest which has meant that the table area isn’t the cleanest. But, it was the middle of summer, very few people would have been opting to sit inside. Well, I would, but that’s a different matter. Anyway, the squatters seemed quite happy with their nest and this is their natural habitat, so I can’t begrudge them that.

    There are six glamping tents on the site and there’s pizza available during the summer weekends. The pizzas that were being served looked rather delicious, but it was still early on in the day although I was a little tempted.

    It was an interesting location and I hadn’t heard of it, but Roy seems to have heard of most drinking places, whether they are obscure or not, in Norfolk so that’s always useful. I was pleased to find a shady spot outside in the beer garden, the team member was friendly and there were lots of beers to drink in or takeaway. They’re also proud of their locally grown barley, so it ticks all the local sourcing boxes which is rather lovely.

  • Little Walsingham – Black Lion Hotel

    Little Walsingham – Black Lion Hotel

    It’s taken me a little while to start writing these up, but a few weeks ago, the delightful Roy and Jen, as well as myself, went to a number of pubs in Norfolk and to delight my two loyal blog readers, I thought I’d better write them up. This is the Black Lion Hotel and it has been a licensed premises since the mid eighteenth century. For a long time this was a Bullards pub, it got swept up in the Watney Mann estate before eventually being taken over by Enterprise Inns. It’s now owned by the small pub Pickled Inns company which also operates the Carpenters Arms in Wighton.

    The earliest I can find the pub mentioned in newspapers was in the Norfolk Chronicle on 2 May 1778 when a meeting was held at the Black Lion to discuss how to deal with horse stealers. This is the historic equivalent of cars being stolen and it was a serious issue at the time, which explains why there around 80 subscribers to the committee who wanted to tackle the problem in the area. It’s easy to think that little changes, but on the same page on the newspaper there’s an update on the French joining in the American War of Independence.

    On 4 April 1908, the pub was advertised by Bullards to let in the Downham Market Gazette with the text:

    “Large posting trade. Good stabling accommodation and yard. Fine bowling green, bar, smoke room, commercial room, usual domestic offices, nine bedrooms”.

    I’m not sure when it was decided to get rid of the bowling green, but there were regular matches played there in the early twentieth century.

    There was a friendly welcome from the team member and there were bar snacks visible, which is always a positive start to proceedings. The front bar is more for drinkers and there’s a larger room at the rear which was busy with diners. I liked how they’ve differentiated this space so that drinkers and diners all felt that there was a place for them. The food menu is mainly traditional pub meals and the price point is towards the higher end of the scale, but it’s all generally well reviewed.

    There were three real ales, although as this was such a warm day I did wonder how the pubs would cope with the beer temperature. This is a real challenge for pubs as even if the cellar is kept cold, there’s the danger that the beer in the lines gets warm before it’s poured and that’s even more evident for people like me who order half pints.

    I opted for the Cheeky Jack from Moon Gazer, a rather lovely local brewery, and the beer was perhaps very slightly warmer than I would have ideally liked, but it was hoppy and had a pleasant orange flavour to it.

    The front bar and it was all clean, tidy and organised. The pub also has six bedrooms and looking at the website, these looked comfortable and well appointed.

    This was all a rather positive first pub of the day: decent beer, a choice of ales, a clean and comfortable environment and a friendly welcome. Most remarkably, Jen hadn’t annoyed me yet. Admittedly, it was still only the first pub.

  • King’s Lynn – New Library

    King’s Lynn – New Library

    I arrived at the new King’s Lynn Library in a slightly unhelpful frame of mind, because I had already decided that I wasn’t going to like it. This was not based on having actually entered the building, which would obviously have been a more conventional approach to reviewing somewhere, but because I liked the old Carnegie Library on London Road and was sorry to see the library service leave it. I was therefore pre-annoyed by its replacement, which at least saved valuable time having to become annoyed once I arrived.

    This is the new ground floor area of what was Argos, although the old library had rather more history on its side. Designed by H. J. Green and built in 1904, it was largely funded by Andrew Carnegie and was formally opened by Carnegie himself on 18 May 1905. The Grade II listed building is an attractive mixture of red brick, terracotta and stone, with a Gothic design influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, complete with a three-storey entrance tower and the names of writers displayed around the building. It served King’s Lynn for more than 120 years before the library moved out, although the building itself has a future, with The Garage Trust taking it on for cultural and community use.

    More books on the ground floor. The replacement opened on 16 March 2026 following a £17 million redevelopment of the former Argos building in New Conduit Street. It spreads across three floors and combines the library with adult learning facilities, meeting spaces and other community services. None of this particularly helped with my determination not to like it, since a former Argos store replacing a Carnegie library does not initially sound like one of civilisation’s more obvious advances.

    Some of the seating on the first floor. Unfortunately for my carefully prepared prejudices, I rather liked it. The main library space felt spacious without becoming cavernous and there was a genuinely decent selection of books which seemed properly curated rather than simply arranged to fill shelves. There was a useful mixture of seating, plenty of power points and free wifi, so it worked equally well for somebody wanting to browse, read, study or sit with a laptop pretending to undertake something they consider important. This latter category perhaps represents a substantial proportion of modern economic activity. The official design includes expanded collections and dedicated quiet study areas, and in practice it actually felt as though some thought had gone into how people might want to use a modern library.

    More seating on the first floor and there was certainly space and I was particularly impressed by the acoustics. Modern open public buildings can sometimes achieve the remarkable feat of amplifying every conversation, dropped object and excited child across several thousand square feet, but that wasn’t the case here. The children’s section has its own dedicated area, including a castle-themed library and play space, but it felt sufficiently separated that children could enjoy themselves without the rest of the library having to enjoy themselves at precisely the same volume. The rest of the building remained pleasantly quiet, which is one of those qualities that ought to be fairly fundamental to a library but can no longer necessarily be taken for granted. This seems a remarkably sophisticated concept and I hope knowledge of it spreads to certain other libraries.

    There were also enough different sorts of chairs and tables that nobody appeared to be fighting for the one tolerable place to sit. I suppose a criticism could be made that the library was really very quiet, but I think I can manage to cope with that. I strongly dislike Norwich Central Library, there’s no space, the acoustics are terrible, the surroundings are too loud and it’s much more comfortable and quiet in JD Wetherspoon. I haven’t been since they reopened the library last week, but I’m pre-annoyed about that too.

    The local history section and I’m pleased to say that they had a Pevsner Architectural Guide to the area, my usual measure of the usefulness of the library.

    There were also some old books on display, something which always pleases me. This book is the “List of Mayors and Notables Events 1348-1659” and it was published in 1660. I rather like the idea that somebody reached the end of 1659 and decided that more than three centuries of municipal administration really ought to be written down before everyone forgot what had happened.

    This book from 1653 is an early anatomy book and I’m not convinced by the accuracy of this plate.

    So I was surprised and delighted, which is mildly irritating when I had made such a good start on disapproving of the whole thing. I still prefer the old Carnegie building as a building, and I suspect I always will. A handsome Edwardian library opened by Andrew Carnegie himself has an architectural and historical advantage which a converted Argos is unlikely to overcome. But as a functioning library for King’s Lynn in 2026, the new building is spacious, quiet, comfortable, well equipped and apparently very carefully thought through. I went in expecting to mourn what had been lost and came out thinking that, actually, they might have got this one right. All really rather lovely.

  • Le Mans – Musée de Tessé (Un marché by Matheus van Helmont)

    Le Mans – Musée de Tessé (Un marché by Matheus van Helmont)

    I still have a blog posting backlog, but that’s nothing new. This painting is effectively a seventeenth-century supermarket, although one with rather more livestock wandering around and considerably less concern about refrigeration. Un marché by the Flemish painter Matheus van Helmont shows a market taking place in an imaginary square, complete with a fountain, Italian-looking buildings and enough food to make it clear that subtlety was not really the objective.

    As an aside, it’s not unusual not to know the precise birth date of an artist from this period, but there’s even uncertainty over when Van Helmont died. He was born in Antwerp in 1623, but sources variously give his death as around 1679 or simply sometime after 1679. I’m used to a little uncertainty in seventeenth-century biography, but that’s still impressively vague.

    Anyway, the produce is everywhere and these were the bad old times before Tesco Express came about. Anyone wanting a chicken apparently had to negotiate with another human being and then take responsibility for carrying it home themselves, which all feels rather sub-optimal. There are baskets of fruit and vegetables, game, poultry and various other things being bought, sold, carried and inspected. There are no aisles, no price labels and no loyalty card scheme, but the basic principle is recognisable enough, namely turn up, find what you want, haggle over it and try not to trip over a dog.

    The abundance is also slightly deceptive. Among all the food and activity, there are poorer figures in the foreground, including a beggar. That stops the scene being simply a cheerful celebration of plenty. Van Helmont is showing a busy commercial world, but not everybody within it is benefiting from that prosperity in the same way. The square itself is imaginary, with its fountain and Italian-influenced architecture, but the people, produce and differences in social status are drawn from the world Van Helmont knew. It is essentially a fictional branch of a seventeenth-century supermarket chain stocked with very real social inequality.

    I like paintings such as this because there’s no obvious point at which you’ve finished looking at them. Every little group seems to contain another argument, transaction, animal or basket of food that I hadn’t noticed before. I’m not sure I learned much about efficient seventeenth-century retail management, but I did establish that Tesco Express has significantly reduced the number of chickens wandering around near the checkout. I sometimes think I think too much about these paintings.

  • 200 Years Ago in Norwich : The Vital Spark had Fled

    200 Years Ago in Norwich : The Vital Spark had Fled

    This newspaper article was in the Norwich Mercury 200 years ago this week, reporting that Mr Snasdell had died from drowning. Not only do I like the word se’nnight, meaning a seven day period, but I particularly like the “the vital spark had fled” to describe his death.

    The individual was Thomas Snasdell and he was buried in Mundesley on 7 August 1826, although he lived in Norwich. He had been born in 1782 and although not mentioned in the article, he married Ann Clarke on 6 September 1824. I will have to work out how to put the phrase “the vital spark had fled” into this blog somehow, it’s a phrase that I feel needs to return.

  • Luton – CitiHotel

    Luton – CitiHotel

    Lovely as Luton is, I try not to spend too much time there, but as my flight was arriving relatively late I wouldn’t have time to get back to Norwich. So, as the Thistle seems to have gone up in price, I went for this poorly reviewed little arrangement located near to the railway station. One of the reasons that I ignored the reviews is that booking.com noted that there was a high number of guests who rebooked there, which is usually a positive sign.

    I had a ten minute wait at reception but this didn’t concern me as there was air conditioning in this area and I was too hot. After several days in France, I was prepared to tolerate quite significant administrative failure provided something kept blowing cold air at me. There was a phone number to ring in the event of an emergency, so I eventually rang that and a team member came out to complete the check-in process.

    A quick look at the fire plan shows the general lack of decadence about the room size, but I like hotels such as this as they’re cheap, affordable and don’t include luxuries that I don’t need. Like windows. There are people who want boutique furnishings, mood lighting and an inspirational selection of cushions from their hotel room. I mostly want somewhere clean to sleep with a plug socket and a temperature that doesn’t make me irritable.

    The basic room which was clean, at a temperature that was acceptable to me although not overly cold, and which I thought was entirely satisfactory.

    I’d stay here again, I didn’t have any noise issues either internally or externally, although it would have been surprising to have any of the latter given that there was no window. The prices were low (the room was around £35 for the night), the staff member was polite and I was near to JD Wetherspoon and the railway station. For anyone that likes comfort, space and a window, then this is perhaps a little sub-optimal and that would explain the rather poor reviews.

  • Wizz Air (Lyon to London Luton)

    Wizz Air (Lyon to London Luton)

    “To stay is to exist, but to travel is to live”. It is unlikely to surprise anyone that I agree with this sentiment, although I suspect whoever coined it had rather more romantic forms of travel in mind than standing in a corridor waiting to board a Wizz Air flight to Luton.

    I had eaten, courtesy of Priority Pass, at Alpage and I saw the gate was announced relatively early, I meandered off as it’s never clear how long passport control will take.

    The walk to the non-Schengen area of the airport.

    Which was shut.

    Budget air travel consists of a lot of standing around in corridors and this was no exception as after I had gone through the border control process, which took twenty seconds, I spent 45 minutes standing here. Travel can be very exotic.

    Off to board.

    The clouds had made the temperature quite reasonable, which was slightly annoying as I was now leaving France after days of being too hot. I may have mentioned the heat once or twice during these posts, although I feel I have shown considerable restraint.

    The aircraft was G-WUKZ which I’m not sure that I’ve been on before. The seating Gods gave me an aisle seat and the flight was entirely pleasant. As usual the crew were polite, the service was efficient, the aircraft was clean and everyone travelled towards the destination in roughly the manner aviation intended. This is generally my preferred level of excitement when several thousand feet in the air, so all was well.

    However, there was a failed landing and a go-around which was slightly sub-optimal from the point of view I was hoping not to have a delay on this flight. The cabin crew made what sounded like a reassuring scripted announcement before the First Officer followed with something rather more spontaneous. I’m not entirely convinced his additional contribution reduced the anxiety levels of every passenger, but at least nobody began distributing life jackets. And I like a bit of drama anyway.

    After another fifteen minutes of faffing about above southern England we landed safely. Around five passengers applauded, which immediately gave me something new to be irritated about. I appreciate that landing an aircraft is considerably more complicated than parking a bicycle, but I generally assume the pilots regard getting us onto the ground safely as part of the agreed service.

    And back at Luton Airport and I was ready to walk into the town centre, which I’m not sure that I’d call a treat, but at least the weather was moderate. Too hot, but moderate. Anyway, it was a very lovely trip to France, made slightly sad for me as I knew that it was the last trip abroad for a few weeks. Fortunately, I had returned to Luton, which is certainly one way of ensuring that the desire to travel again remains strong.

  • Norwich – Bar Billiards (Cup Match 2 – Artichoke Hearts vs Lionhearts)

    Norwich – Bar Billiards (Cup Match 2 – Artichoke Hearts vs Lionhearts)

    Our third match in three weeks was a cup game against the Lionhearts from the White Lion pub. Nathan and I would never say this in public, but we’re the best two captains in the league and I ignored the “they seem to think they’re the Gallagher brothers of bar billiards” comments. We are considerably more professional than that, although there is admittedly some swagger, unnecessary rivalry and an outside possibility that one of us will announce a reunion tour before immediately cancelling it over creative differences.

    The draw was conducted in a polite manner and I like their idea of having see-through name tags, I’m going to get Luke to do that next year. Ivan had reliably informed me that he would beat Oscar, so I was already looking forward to taking an early 1-0 lead. I admired his confidence and, against all available evidence, briefly shared it.

    Anyway, we went into the second game 1-0 down. It would be unfair to be rude about Ivan here, as I have plenty of other opportunities for that, because he was level with Oscar for much of the game. Unfortunately, bar billiards matches are generally decided by the score at the end rather than the encouraging period somewhere in the middle. This victory also made Oscar unbearable for about fifteen minutes, they really need a responsible woman on that team to restore some discipline. But I didn’t say anything.

    Then it was my turn and by now we were 3-0 down and that was very sub-optimal. I knew this was my opportunity to surprise and delight Nathan, so naturally I produced my highest score and best break of the season. Nathan might have been more impressed had I not been doing it against one of his own players, but these are minor details in the pursuit of sporting excellence.

    It was a genuinely good game against Fraser, although I have to remain polite about him because he occasionally reads my electricity meter. There are rivalries in sport, but there are also practical considerations involving estimated bills. I’d better add Fraser doesn’t work for EDF, he just lives nearby to me.

    Incidentally, Danish Pete (known by that as he’s Danish) scored the most points and he’s my favourite of the Lionhearts because he says nice things about this blog, demonstrating both excellent judgement and a willingness to overlook its declining editorial standards. He’s a published author and that discernment shows.

    This also allows me to mention, entirely incidentally, that I recorded the second-highest score of the evening. I would not normally draw attention to my own achievements, so I shall leave that fact sitting quietly here in its own little paragraph.

    Alex with the bar snacks. By this time, we had gone into the doubles 4-2 down, but we lost our first doubles games (again, we played the games in a different order to the score-sheet) and so we were knocked out of the cup. That took the pressure off Vaughan and I and we managed to get it to 5-3 and this confirms an important psychological principle that the Artichoke Hearts are at their most dangerous once there is absolutely nothing left to save. I was also distracted by Craig, the organiser of Norwich Beer Festival, heckling me from the rear of the room, but fortunately I was only distracted from eating and not from playing bar billiards. Nothing distracts me there.

    The highlight of my evening. I ensured that I got pork scratchings for Nathan, although I think Lee got to most of them first. I was impressed with his speed on the food acquisition, he was certainly not far off being as fast as me. I’m pleased to say that I secured M&Ms so I was happy with the arrangement. I liked Lee’s claim he was just opening the packets to share, I use lines like that too whilst busily eating some from each pack.

    I still have no idea why Nathan likes pork scratchings. They resemble fragments removed during emergency repairs to an old leather sofa, but I never say anything. Captaincy sometimes though involves politely looking away while someone eats something that appears to have been recovered from a builder’s skip.

    I forgot to take many photos of the game, but here’s the doubles game with PJ, Nick, Fraser and Nathan in the photo. There’s also Kirsty and I think Luke’s arm. I didn’t want to miss anyone out there.

    On the bright side, I didn’t have to go to the King’s Head as tradition dictates when we occasionally win. Well done to Pete, Vaughan, Danish Pete and Luke on their high scores, and me of course. I recognise Nathan’s handwriting there, we often forget to record those notable breaks, so thanks for his thoroughness.

    It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and many thanks to the Lionhearts for a close game and excellent company. They deserved their victory, although as one of the two greatest captains in the league I naturally reserve the right to attribute it partly to circumstances beyond my control. And well done to everyone on the Artichoke Hearts, it was a lot of fun and there were numerous close games.

    We can now concentrate on the league, largely because the cup has made itself unavailable to us. I’ll watch some more Brian Clough videos before the next match, as the tactical benefits of simply shouting at everyone have yet to be fully explored.

  • Norwich – Bar Billiards (Game 8 – Artichoke Hearts vs Serengeti)

    Norwich – Bar Billiards (Game 8 – Artichoke Hearts vs Serengeti)

    Half the season now completed, we were playing the Serengeti for the second time this year. Following a sub-optimal result against Cottagecore the previous week, I had summoned the players to a training night on the Monday so that we were prepared. I spent some time considering what Brian Clough would have done in the circumstances and concluded that he would almost certainly have called an additional bar billiards practice session in a Norwich pub. The parallels between us are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

    My highly motivated team were clearly energised, focused and transformed by this intensive preparation, as we promptly lost the first two games. There are occasions when coaching takes a little while to filter through.

    Then PJ put us on winning form.

    Ivan, against whom I now refuse to hear a single word, followed with another victory. I never doubted him, other than during several earlier matches and most of the previous week.

    I bought myself a drink to celebrate the emergence of my new star player. Ivan received the considerably greater reward of knowing that he had briefly earned my approval.

    Then the bar snacks appeared. I managed to beat Wes which meant that it was 3-3 going into the doubles part of the evening.

    The dream team of myself and Vaughan put us 4-3 up, then Ivan and PJ lost (for anyone checking the results sheet, we played a game out of order) which meant that Terri and Luke had the final game. And this marvellous partnership eased to victory so we won 5-4.

    The Serengeti are my former team and remain a marvellous group of people. Roy is the calmest and most gentlemanly of captains, an approach I have studied carefully before deciding not to adopt any of it. It was a lovely evening and an exceptionally close match, and I hope they do really well in the cup this year. I also missed my friend Emma, of course, as the Serengeti are never quite the same without her. They are noticeably quieter, for one thing.

    Another great night and thanks to everyone, I had a most lovely time. But, my rule is that I go to the King’s Head afterwards if we win, so here are.

    And Oscar was there too from the Lionhearts, which leads me neatly to my next post.