Category: Norfolk

The fourth pub of the day for Julian and I on our study tour to King’s Lynn was rather decadent, the upmarket Bank House. This is one of the newer pubs in the town as it only opened in 1983 and remained open for a decade before partly being turned into offices.

There are numerous different dates online about when the building was reopened as a restaurant, bar and hotel, but it’s all rather glamorous. It was first constructed in the seventeenth century as a merchant’s house and was then turned into a bank which was used by the Gurneys, later part of Barclays Bank.

The venue has its own plaque and there’s an extensive history of the building on their web-site which includes:

“A stunning Grade II * listed Georgian townhouse, described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as one of the finest houses in King’s Lynn, Bank House was built in the early 18th Century for one of King’s Lynn’s richest merchants. Underneath the house extensive barrel roofed vaults extend down to the river where wine imported from the continent would have been stored before being shipped on to Cambridge, Ely or the North.

In the 1780s Joseph Gurney set up his first bank in Bank House. A dent is visible in the wooden floor of the Counting House, now the front room of the Brasserie, where nervous customers once shuffled their feet as they waited at the cashiers’ desk to make their withdrawals.”

And any building that Pevsner likes, I’m fairly certain that I’m going to like as well.

The area where “nervous customers once shuffled their feet” is where that hatch is located.

This is the front room of the Brasserie and the room to the right is the former bank manager’s office.

And here is that room, the former bank manager’s office, which is now the bar area. It’s all tastefully decorated although some of the seating feels more decorative than functional.

There were two real ales available, 61 Deep and Pedigree which are both from Marstons. I went for the 61 Deep, which is a reference to how deep the well is at Marston’s brewery in Burton, and it was well-kept and at the appropriate temperature (the beer, not the well in Burton). Julian went for a soft drink, so I assumed that he was very unwell and I don’t think he’ll make that mistake again in a hurry. I didn’t like to say anything.

I thought that this was a rather smartly laid out venue and there were numerous dining rooms and seating areas. The team members were friendly and welcoming, so it felt inviting despite the grand surroundings. I’m not sure that many people go in just for a drink as this is primarily a dining venue, but they’re welcome to do so and there are a few tables to sit at. We were visiting in the afternoon and they were still serving, although they didn’t have many customers at that point.

The food menus and I thought that the prices seemed quite agreeable given the decadence of the surroundings.

This venue couldn’t have been much different from the previous two pubs we had been to, both Craft Union, but I enjoyed the environment and it all felt informal. There’s always something exciting about being in a building with so much heritage and I wouldn’t rule out returning here for a meal. All rather lovely.

The next pub on our study tour to King’s Lynn was the Eagle, another Craft Union pub. It has been a pub since the 1850s, although has gone through numerous name changes, merging with the neighbouring White Swan in 1887 to form the Eagle & Swan.

A bomb hit the pub on 12 June 1942, killing 16 people and the newly rebuilt pub didn’t reopen until 1959. There was a £125,000 investment into the pub in 2017 when the Eagle name was brought back, having formerly been Bar Red.

The choice of real ales was between Ghost Ship from Adnams and Doom Bar, so we inevitably went for the former. Priced at just £2.50 a pint, it was well kept and tasted as expected. The serving in a Carling glass isn’t ideal, I don’t want to get a reputation if anyone thinks I had ordered it. The service was polite and efficient, with the pub taking card payments.

The pub is long with a pool table at the rear as well as a sizeable beer garden which was busy when we visited. It’s very much a sports pub and there are screens located around the venue. It was all clean, tidy and well presented although there are some parts of the pub that are in need of repair and the toilets have seen better days. Indeed, the matter of smashed toilets, missing toilet seats and general vandalism appear to have beset the pub for many years judging by the reviews.

The front bar of the pub, with the flags I think relating to the ongoing FIFA Women’s World Cup. There was a change of team members during our visit and so enthusiastically were they singing their version of karaoke they missed customers and weren’t acknowledging those entering and leaving the pub. The pub doesn’t serve food and its main selling point appears to be sport and cheap drinks.

The Eagle does have a sense of being a community pub and the atmosphere was informal and laid-back, although it’s been picking up a few negative reviews recently. It’s a competitive area given the nearby Maids Head, also Craft Union, and the Globe, the sizeable JD Wetherspoon pub, but it was one of the busiest pubs that we visited. Certainly a lively venue, I definitely can’t complain about the value for money.

The second pub that Julian and I visited on our study tour was the Craft Union operated Maids Head which is located on the Tuesday Market Place in the town. It first opened in the 1730s and became a Bullards pub which is evident from the rather attractive tablets on the frontage. I’m not sure why there’s a door on the right hand side, that was once a window and it’s evident from the brickwork that this part of the building has been reworked. More recently it became a Watney Mann pub and is now part of Stonegate’s Craft Union chain.

Here’s what the Tuesday Market Place used to look like, with the Maids Head being the yellow building that’s third from the right (clicking on the image makes it larger). Once a grand square, it’s unfortunately now used as a car park which gives it a similar ambience to the outside of a Tesco Extra store.

There was a choice of Doom Bar or Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, so we both went for the latter and it was keenly priced at £3 per pint. The beer was well-kept and tasted as expected, so all was well.

The interior of the pub was modern and kitted out like many other Craft Union pubs. It’s all a little generic for me, Stonegate tend to make the pub fit its standard interior decor plans rather than looking at the venue and basing the design around that. It’s an area that smaller pub companies and national chains such as JD Wetherspoon are far better on, their localisation is frequently impressive. However, it was clean and comfortable, so there were no problems there. Given that Craft Union claim they spent £200,000 on this last year, I’m surprised they didn’t do something more creative, although in fairness, the internal divisions which would have added character were removed long ago.

The bar area and sports are shown throughout the pub. The pub is generally well reviewed, with frequent mention of their low pricing, although there is an unanswered and odd review noting:

“So my husband and son went to kings Lynn music festival and went to have a drink in the maids head, my son went to use the toilet and was ordered by the bounser to get to the back of the non existent queue he went back to the bouncer and said he wanted to use the toilet and was violently pushed into the railings and landed on the floor, the bouncer and another one jumped on top of my son grabbing him by the throat and was literally strangling him only letting go when his dad intervened. When is it nessesary to use these tactics when a customer asked to use the toilet. I certainly won’t be recommending this pub to anyone and most definitely won’t drink in there again. Their bouncers are appalling”

I can imagine there’s more to this, but it’s certainly sub-optimal for a venue to have this sort of review. The pub was in the news recently when one of their door staff was attacked, with the defendant’s solicitor stating:

“This is the first time she had been out, she thought for enjoyment, in a number of years. She went out and drank far too much. She was intoxicated, and that is why she has very little memory of the incident itself.”

From this and some reviews, it certainly feels like there might be more of an edge to the venue in the evenings and so perhaps Julian and I missed out on some more raucous action.

Anyway, all was clean and organised, with the team member who served us being polite and helpful, as well as offering a friendly farewell. There’s an effort with the presentation with hanging baskets outside and the atmosphere was inviting and comfortable. The pricing is low and competitive with the large JD Wetherspoon Globe Hotel located on the opposite side of the market square. The venue doesn’t serve food and so their USP appears to be competitively priced drinks in a community pub style atmosphere. I enjoyed the visit and the surroundings were well maintained with the beer being well-kept, so the manager seems to be doing a decent job.

Another day and Julian and I were off on another of our study tours. This pub has its name back again, the former Lattice House was changed to Bishops of Chapel Street but it has gone back to what it was previously called and it has recently reopened after being closed for a few months. For many years it was operated by JD Wetherspoon and the historic nature of the building is what made this one of my favourite pubs in their chain, but it was flogged off in early 2016 as they likely thought their nearby Globe Hotel pub was sufficient for their needs. I’ve written about this venue before, as it went through a period as a restaurant when people in their early 20s were entirely banned and unsurprisingly that little initiative didn’t work and it closed after just a few months. Even younger people can enjoy decent food.

As the sign notes, the pub was originally built in the late fifteenth century as a row of shops, but became an inn in the early eighteenth century. It ceased being a pub in 1919 when the licence wasn’t renewed, but was reopened in 1982 when CAMRA themselves took it over. It then became a JD Wetherspoon venue in July 2000 and they kept it until 2016.

The Lynn News reported in May 2023 that a new owner had taken over, with an attempt to give the venue some stability after its recent closure.

We both ordered half of the Jigfoot from Moon Gazer (I like Moon Gazer) and the team member mentioned that he’d probably only have enough for one of us as it was near the end of the barrel. I quickly switched to the Pintail from the same brewery and Julian followed, an end of the barrel beer isn’t very appealing and we thought we’d let another customer take that chance. The Pintail was well kept, at the appropriate temperature and tasted as expected.

The interior of this pub is outstanding and there’s an upstairs bar and gallery area which looks down on the main hall.

There are a number of smaller rooms, although this area did lack some atmosphere. This is one of the evident challenges of this building, it’s large and something of an odd shape so it’s hard to see what’s going on throughout the various rooms.

The bar itself covers three different rooms and there’s no shortage of character in the pub as a whole.

The welcome was friendly and immediate, with the surroundings feeling comfortable and it’s hard not to be taken in by the beauty of the building itself. The team members also offered a polite farewell when we left the pub, so the service was always warm and helpful. The pub has a challenge that it’s near a Wetherspoons and two Craft Union pubs which all have low prices, but the beers here were reasonably priced. It wasn’t evident to me whether food was being sold as there were no menus on tables, although an external sign notes that cakes are available.

It’s marvellous that this pub is open again and it was the first one that I wanted to visit as part of our expedition to the town for research purposes. I’m sure it’ll evolve over the next few months, but I rather enjoyed visiting here again and it’s hard to remember now when it was operated by Wetherspoons although there are some clues around such as the tiling and other internal decoration which remains.