Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: UK

Wisbech – Wisbech and Fenland Museum

[I originally posted this in July 2018, but have reposted it to fix the broken image links]

This museum claims that they believe this is one of the oldest museums in the country which is still located within its original purpose-built building, and the Wisbech and Fenland Museum opened in 1847. Indeed, the museum seems overly large for the size of the town and it’s no doubt a testament to the volunteers that it has survived for over a century and a half.

The museum was first founded in 1835 when 31 members of the local community came together to form a literary and antiquary society. It now has over 50,000 items in its collections, although I’m not entirely sure where they store them all.

In an age where museums seem too willing to dispose of items, I was glad to read that the museum says “we do not have the resources to carry out a rationalisation project and consequently it is not a priority”. So, nothing will be flogged off. Sometimes having insufficient money can be for the best.

There is an entrance room, which has a small shop, and then there is a room with various items of porcelain, postcards and information about different aspects of the history of the town. This room was formerly the museum’s lecture room, and then there is the two storey main gallery which has the bulk of the items on display. This is rather a tight space, but it feels authentic and they do fit a lot into the area. There must also be a library in the building, although I believe that this was closed on the day of my visit.

What is left is a very Victorian feeling museum which offers a friendly welcome and a rather eclectic range of exhibits. Unfortunately, what I consider to be one of their most interesting exhibits, which is the original text of Great Expectations, wasn’t on display on the Saturday when I visited. The museum had been given the manuscript in 1868 by Reverend Chauncy Hare Townshend, a friend of Dickens.

I mentioned above that it is fortunate that the museum isn’t currently to dispose of items. It hasn’t always been so though, as the museum trustees tried to flog off their most precious asset, the Dickens manuscript, in 1947. It results in an inquiry from the Charity Commissioners which the trustees tried to ignore, despite being told not to sell it. The will donating the item to the museum specifically said that the trustees couldn’t sell it, and it’s not clear why they ultimately didn’t, perhaps the legalities proved too much to bear. The sale would have raised around £10,000, but fortunately the trustees didn’t prevail in their plans.

I’m sad to say that I hadn’t previously heard of Thomas Clarkson, who is another important part of the museum. Clarkson was an anti-slave campaigner who lived from 1760 until 1846 and he was a student of Wisbech Grammar School. The museum tells the story of Clarkson’s endeavours, including how he spoke to 20,000 sailors and travelled 35,000 miles to find out more about the slave trade.

William Wilberforce is the much better known historical figure who fought against slavery, and there’s a fascinating museum dedicated to his life in Hull. However, the museum explains that it was Clarkson who provided Wilberforce with details and facts about the slave trade which became crucial to his speeches.

A carved oak chair from the 1870s, sculpted by Marshall George Strapps. He took up carving when working as a toll-keeper, and later in his life he collected tolls on the town’s Leverington Road. He is also buried in the town, at Leverington Road Cemetery.

My favourite exhibit in the museum was the 1657 manuscript map of Wisbech Hundred. The museum explains that the land had recently been carved up now that it was newly drained, and this map records that.

Also in the museum is a collection of birds, or what Dylan would call “dead animals” (actually I think I called it that, but he’s used the term many times since). It’s a rather Victorian style of displaying wildlife, but now it has been created it would seem wrong to destroy it.

Every provincial museum should have items which visitors can relate to, and this museum didn’t let me down. Lots of household items, although I’m obviously too young to remember any of them.

Some bottles from Elgood’s Brewery, which is a local business which first opened in 1795, and is still based on the town.

When Cadbury’s made proper chocolate….

There is also a collection of coins, which is quite an interesting little exhibit, although they only had a limited amount of space to display them. They have numerous Roman and Greek coins, most of which have been found in the local area.

Overall, I thought that this was a delightful little museum and it’s marvellous that it has survived for so long. There is no entrance charge, although donations are gratefully received, and there are numerous events which are put on by the museum.

August 13, 2025
Redhill – Garland Pub

In trying to deal with this extreme heat, I decided that I would seek solace in the pub.

The pub is tied to Harvey’s, which might be obvious from this beer selection, but it was positive to see a choice of different real ales as well as numerous flavours of Tayto crisps. The service was friendly, engaging and warm, so the environment felt welcoming and a place that I might want to actually spend some time.

The pub had a clean and inviting interior. CAMRA notes that it was built as a Victorian corner pub in 1865 and was known as the Anchor until Harvey’s Brewery purchased it in 1992. The pub has been in previous Good Beer Guides, but it seems to have fallen out in recent years, although this is more likely just because there’s strong competition in the area.

Oooh, a bar billiards table. Hopefully I’ll get to play on it one day, I think Surrey has quite an active league going on.

This was my first drink….. There’s a lot to be said for water with ice in a heatwave.

This is the Forward’s Choice from Harvey’s Brewery and it was on the turn. In fairness, I could have taken it back and informed them, but I was too hot and tired to do very much about the situation so I’ll accept that one is my responsibility as these things happen.

The Prince of Denmark from Harvey’s Brewery and this was much better, with flavours of chocolate and liquorice, with the taste being rich and very slightly boozy.

I liked this pub, it had an informal feel to it and a decent selection of beers from Harvey’s, which I don’t get to see much in East Anglia. I like the idea of playing bar billiards here and the whole environment felt comfortable and inviting. I won’t hold the beer on the turn against them as I didn’t tell them and it’s hot and these things happen. It just means I’ll have to come again to try the venue again.

August 12, 2025
Reigate – Reigate Tunnel

Whilst other people are going on fancy holidays around the world, enjoying decadent dining and lying by swimming pools with craft beer, I decided to visit what might be the oldest road tunnel in Europe. It was originally opened in 1823 when there was a toll of 6 old pence per coach, but they removed the toll in 1858 and pedestrians were never charged for using it, a decision that I applaud.

This seems a sensible name for the road. Its construction was needed as the town is on a hill that was proving challenging for the road traffic of the time, namely horses, and there were fears that the developing settlement of Redhill might steal their trade. There’s perhaps a slight irony that the railway line then promptly went straight through Redhill rather than Reigate, which might not have entirely delighted the denizens of the town.

It’s clear from this 1880s map why they decided to make this direct tunnel through to the town centre. In the early twentieth century, the council started to buy up properties so that they could widen the road, but then after doing so, they decided not to widen the road.

The road was made one way in the 1930s and then pedestrianised in the 1970s.

They’ve currently doing some work on the structure.

Inside the tunnel. There were originally vaults here, now accessible on occasional tours, which have been used for numerous purposes over the decades including as a war shelter, munitions storage, as a billiards hall and for alcohol storage. They’ve part of a wider caves network which had been created when they dug out silver sand, but they got a bit enthusiastic and in 1858 there was a bit of collapse which initially seemed sub-optimal, but they instead created sunken gardens to make things feel more positive.

Old signage from when there was a licensed premises here.

The bridge from the town side. They had to demolish two properties on the main street when they constructed it. It remains an important pedestrian link from the railway station and I like the efforts made to provide information boards about its heritage.

August 12, 2025
Reigate – Red Cross Inn

Whilst in Reigate I popped into the Red Cross Inn in the hope of cooling down slightly, which I’m not sure was an aim that was entirely successful, but I left refreshed if nothing else. It’s a Stonegate pub which is branded as part of their Craft Union chain.

Some of the pub’s history (transcript below).

“The Red Cross Inn can be traced back to the 17th century.

In 1652 the inn was owned by William Castleman who was substantial enough to issue his own farthing tokens. This is the earliest record of the inn clearly indicating a going concern.

Situated at the foot of the castle owned by the Earls of Surrey and beside the medieval market place.

The inn stands opposite the site of the medieval chapel of the Holy Cross that stood on an island in the middle of the road after the Reformation used as a barn and demolished in late 1785.

For centuries this hostelry was used by traders & farmers on market day, travellers and generations of townspeople.

Today this inn remains a well known Reigate landmark.”

It was reported in March 1900 that the pub was set back six feet to allow for road widening, so the frontage of the pub likely dates entirely from then. Ironically, there’s quite a gap between the pub and the road now, so that sacrifice might not have ultimately been necessary.

The beer was the London Pride and was well kept and reasonably priced. The beer selection was weak, mostly relying on lagers, with no craft keg beers of note, but I have to accept this is Craft Union and it’s not what they claim to be about. The venue was clean, although it was quite warm in terms of the temperature, although so were most places.

In terms of the negatives, there was no real engagement at the bar as the landlord just kept talking to another customer which I take no offence at, but if I was a new customer coming in for the first time, it wouldn’t have been the most welcoming of services. The landlord also was perhaps quite brave with his commentary on some first time customers who had walked in (and out) and I think I’ll limit my comments to that as I don’t want to be too downbeat about any pub.

An old door in the corner of the venue, which I assume is some sort of nod towards the heritage of the building. Stonegate have recently spent £200,000 on doing up this venue, although it wasn’t immediately obvious to me how they’d invested this money, although architectural features such at the fireplace had been retained.

Overall, it’s all OK and actually the sort of venue that I’d go, which is indeed why I do visit Craft Union pubs. I accept their drinks aren’t really what I want, but their pricing is reasonable and there’s usually some vibrancy to the atmosphere. It was quiet when I went, but I understand it’s busy on weekends and so they must be doing quite a lot right to surprise and delight customers.

August 12, 2025
2013 KFC Forest Gate Receipt

As to what’s this doing here….

Of no great relevance, but a minor piece of social history from January 2013 and a two piece variety meal.

August 11, 2025
200 Years Ago in Norwich : Joseph Christmas Died at Port-au-Prince

In a newspaper article in the Norwich Mercury from 200 years ago this week, it’s mentioned that the death of Joseph Christmas, aged 17, was confirmed. The news had come from Port-au-Prince, which is today one of the most dangerous cities in the world and nearly entirely controlled by gangs. This likely wasn’t his destination, he was on a merchant ship where he died during the travels.

Joseph Harmer Christmas was born on 19 May 1809 in Great Yarmouth and was baptised the following day, which seems to be rather efficient. He was the son of John and Honor Harmer Christmas and here’s the will of John. On the surname, it’s relatively rare and its origins are unclear although there’s more on a Wikipedia page about the matter. What intrigues me more is what the 16 year old (the newspaper article got his age wrong) was doing off in the then British West Indies, his family didn’t appear to be wealthy enough to be involved in owning plantations, although they did seem reasonably well connected. Yet another mystery that maybe one day I’ll be able to solve to my complete satisfaction….

August 11, 2025
200 Years Ago in Norwich : John Atkins Sentenced to Death

In another of my exciting (or something like that) posts about articles in the newspaper from 200 years ago this week, this is the court record of when John Atkins went to court.

“John Atkins, for breaking into the dwelling-house of John Seaman, of Tasburgh, and stealing a gold ring and about 40s. in cash. – This case was very similar to those already given: The prosecutor having left his house safe when he went out; on returning found it broken open, and suspecting the prisoner, caused him to be apprehended, who (when taken before a magistrate) confessed the charge. Guilty-sentence of death recorded.”

Even the article notes that this is just one in a series of judgements from the same court which routinely led to the execution of the prisoner. It’s really quite evident that these death sentences weren’t much of a deterrent and that crime was running at high levels. It seems that John Seaman likely already knew Atkins, given that he suspected him of the crime. John was though in luck, as on 31 August 1825, it was decided that he would be pardoned and his sentence commuted to transportation to what was referred to as “the new colony” of Australia. However, I can’t find any mention of his transportation record, so his ultimate fate remains a mystery to me at least.

August 10, 2025
Marvellous to See J Mark Dodds at GBBF

I’ve already written about my week volunteering at GBBF, but it was lovely to catch up with J Mark Dodds during the week and of course Julian. I nominated Mark to be a director of CAMRA’s NEC and I was delighted that he was elected.

August 10, 2025
Volunteering at the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) 2025

I’ve volunteered at Norwich Beer Festival for over a decade (and on a separate note, I’m delighted that that’s going ahead this year albeit in a slightly different form because of the delays to the Halls repairs) so I decided this year to come and volunteer at the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) for a week. I arrived early on the Sunday morning and was given the H&S briefing given that the NEC hall was a construction site at that point. Hi-vis jacket and steel toe shoes later, I was ready for action, hoping that they didn’t want me to do anything construction related.

I was tasked with helping set up the Breweriana stall, a word (Breweriana, not stall, that I had to think about how to spell and pronounce). I discovered that this meant old books, old glasses and brewery memorabilia so I merrily decided to ask to stay all week, meaning that they were stuck with me for the whole event. I was pleased that the managers and staffing agreed to this, but it was definitely an excellent decision.

It looked chaotic at this point, but the two stand managers knew what they wanted to achieve.

Starting to put the old glasses on the shelving units. I’m pleased to say I didn’t break any glasses all week.

Woooo, glasses from Norwich Beer Festival, and it was possibly me that sold them in the first place.

The stand coming together.

We had a lot of bottles of unopened beer which sold well and here’s an early bottle of Adnams Broadside.

Volunteer food options were a little limited due to NEC restrictions, but, fortunately, a quick walk to the monorail to get to Birmingham Airport meant I could get to Greggs and M&S. I was located near to the hotel, as CAMRA had paid for some rooms at the Hilton located at the NEC and that meant I didn’t have to trek back into the city centre every day.

Funky Fluid! Europe’s best brewer.

Twas ever thus.

There was live music during the event and I think it’s fair to say that this did not surprise and delight me. Not because of the quality of the bands and singers themselves, but just because the noise was a bit loud and the building acoustics are terrible as it wasn’t really designed to be a concert hall. I’m not sure that even the Wurzels would have sounded good in here.

Thanks to Roy and Jen for bringing me four Greggs chicken bakes from the company’s outlet store.

The hot dog at the staff party at the end of the event. The actual hot dog isn’t visible, but was rather lovely. Note the healthy salad.

There were seconds available later on, so I accidentally had another one and the staff forced a sausage roll on me as well.

The staff party taking place after the festival closed to the public. I’ve tried to avoid taking photos of people here, but as a sense of scale, this was the size of the volunteer area during the entire festival. We had a lot of space everywhere.

Inside the American beers storage area where I had numerous beers that did surprise and delight me. The Volunteer Arms had free beer and cider all week and it was rather lovely to try so many different beers during the week. For anyone wondering about whether they should volunteer, I’d very much recommend it.

The take-down of the stand took us around three hours and that was the end of that. This was the first time in a long while that GBBF didn’t take place in London and it was obviously risky moving it elsewhere, I hope it’s worked out well enough in Birmingham to have another event like this next year. It was great to meet new friends and I was fortunate to be included in a great team at my stall. It was lovely to see Mark, Simon, Susie, Bob and many others who I knew from the Star, not to forget the marvellous Julian, Roy and Jen from Norwich.

August 10, 2025
Birmingham NEC – Hilton Metropole Bar (Two Julians)

Two nights ago, as part of our brief national tour, Julian and I visited the Moxy hotel bar and it was frankly a positive and well thought through operation (the hotel, not Julian and I). They’d made an effort to work through the service, the environment and the drinks selection. Last night, we tried the Hilton Metropole bar to add some variety to proceedings. This is the slightly dirty environment that greeted us and it’s fair to say when I looked at the online food and drinks menu, I was not surprised and delighted. Well, I was surprised actually, but not for positive reasons.

The drinks selection was very poor and I don’t think I’ve pitched my expectations too high here. Even Travelodge, Ibis Budget, the YHA and Premier Inn offer some form of craft beer options, even if just in cans. The Hilton is a 795 room hotel, so they can easily offer a micropub, a whisky bar and indeed anything else they wanted. In this hotel, they’ve gone for some generic keg beers, with the nearest vague effort being Camden Pale. There were no real ales, craft beers, ales in bottles and no nod towards anything local. It feels like it’s a venue which seeks to make no contribution towards the local community in terms of its food and drink supplies, and that runs across all of their menus in the hotel.

The pricing is also hideous, a half pint is not much off the price of a full pint, which is just unnecessary greed and promotes excessive drinking. Pints are around £7 to £10 each. The service was clumsy, Julian’s pint was short measured and when they topped it up, they topped it up with the wrong beer. It’s that entire level of attention here that was evident throughout the service.

In fairness to the team members, who seemed to be doing their very best, the venue was cleaned up during our long visit. The manager and team members were apologising to customers as their order system had gone wrong and they couldn’t track orders to tables, which all felt a little sub-optimal.

This was the nearest drinkable beer or cider available, and it’s OK, but any hotel of any size should be doing more than this. Let’s read the exciting text on the Hilton’s website:

“We have specially selected craft beers, cocktails, and wines.”

That’s very likely written with AI, the Oxford Comma is an indicator but not a guarantee of that, but the rest of the text has an AI fake feel to it. But they do not have specially selected craft beers, let’s just leave it at that, unless a manager really believes that Becks is something they’ve specially selected for its quality.

As mentioned, the team members were evidently doing their best so I have no negative comment about that, although I suspect there are some training issues that could be easily resolved. However, the general product was horrendous, if they’re going for premium pricing then they need to keep the venue cleaner, there has to be a choice here about their aspirations. Thinking about the hotels I’ve visited over recent months, the beer selection here is one of the weakest and, on a wider level, for a venue of this size to entirely disengage with local suppliers is terrible. If I might humour my two loyal blog readers, this situation is really sub-optimal, I’m reminded of the number of Accor hotels that deliberately stock local beers, ciders, spirits and soft drinks, because they are proud of the community that they serve.

August 7, 2025