Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: UK

  • Norwich – Norwich Railway Station (Waiting Room Doors)

    Norwich – Norwich Railway Station (Waiting Room Doors)

    This waiting room at Norwich railway station is a bloody nuisance to me as I can’t get in. The automatic doors entirely ignore me, regardless of where I try and stand so that the sensors recognise me. Everyone else sails in (and I’ve even brought friends to test whether they can get in – which they always can), whilst I’ve now just taken to tail-gating someone else in.

    But today, something changed. I still can’t get in the bloody waiting room, but I noticed nor could someone else. He looked puzzled, confused and just a little befuddled. This pleased me greatly, not because he was in a state of disorder, but because I know that there is someone else in the city who can’t get in either.

  • Norwich – Greggs

    Norwich – Greggs

    Since this will be my last opportunity to get a Greggs for over a month, I didn’t want to waste it, so an early morning (well, what I call early morning) visit to London Street was needed.

    Bargain…..

    Since it was before 8am, I didn’t feel the need to have anything too heavy, so a delicious and succulent sausage roll it was…..

    I’m not normally one for sweet options, but how lovely. The service was, as usual, fast and efficient, making this another stress-free experience. I haven’t yet tried one of the chain’s new vegan steak bakes, that’ll have to wait for my return.

    I shall miss Greggs. For the many, not the few as they say.

  • Norwich – The Reindeer

    Norwich – The Reindeer

    The Reindeer was the first pub on CAMRA’s Friday Five and I haven’t been here for a couple of years. The ownership changed in 2018 and the food menu has become a little more mainstream compared to the previous operators. It’s an Elgoods pub, although they have beers from other breweries available.

    The beer choice and unfortunately they’d run out of Elgood’s Plum Porter, a reliably good beer option. I went for the Wild Spice from Wildcraft Brewery, a local operation to Norwich. Apparently this beer is meant to “ooze with cinnamon, ginger, cardamon and nutmeg”, although I struggled to get any discernible flavours or depth of flavour from it. Disappointingly bland.

    I tend to avoid live music pubs as it’s not a genre that much interests me, so it’s unlikely that I’d go here again, but the staff were welcoming and keen to engage which gave it a friendly edge. It’s also clearly a popular location for live music and the pub seemed professionally managed, so all rather lovely.

  • Norwich – Arboretum

    Norwich – Arboretum

    NB – it has come to my attention that this venue has been blocking single customers from going in on their own. I despise this practice, the thought that someone makes the effort to visit to get some company and is blocked I think is highly sub-optimal. I won’t be returning at any time in the future.

     

    This combination of bar and antiques shop is perhaps as anomalous as any pub in Norwich, looking boarded up from the outside. We visited as part of CAMRA’s Friday Five, which meant a slight pressure on numbers as this bar only holds thirty people (it can technically hold sixty, but they like everyone to be able to get a seat, so self-restrict the numbers). The admission process was though monitored by a helpful staff member at the entrance, so there wasn’t too much of a wait to get in.

    There are three parts to the pub, the first room which is the former shop area, the second room which is where the bar is located and a rear room which is a covered outside area. The current opening hours are a little limited, from 15.00 until 22.00 on Tuesdays to Saturdays, but they might be extending those in 2020.

    This is the first room, looking like someone’s living room from the early twentieth century.

     

    Everything, within reason, is for sale and there’s some sort of haggling process available for those who are interested in making a purchase.

    The service at the bar from the owner was friendly and helpful, with the St. Peter’s Plum Porter being a reliable option and during our visit it was reduced to £3 for CAMRA members. The bar only sells beer in bottles, but the choice is well thought through, the staff member knowledgeable and the products are local.

    I’m used to being served drinks in old beer festival glasses, but never in a 1953 Coronation glass….

    This is the pub’s dog, which is either Dylan or Dillon, a glorious wolfhound who liked having a little wander around. I’m not sure what the other Dylan I know would think of this, he’d probably be quite impressed….

    As someone else said, the bar has become a little bit of a hipster outlet, but that’s more because this is an on-trend and intriguing pub than for any forced reason. The speakeasy type of way of getting in all just adds to the experience and awe, making this one of the more interesting bars in the city. For any location to have no external advertising or branding is very brave, but it seems to work here.

  • Norwich – Royalls Fish and Chips

    Norwich – Royalls Fish and Chips

    James had a marvellous idea to visit this new fish and chips shop which opened a couple of weeks ago, located on Castle Meadow. As someone who gets battered pizza specially provided for him at Grosvenor, he was keen to try the similar offering from this new chip shop. I’ve heard mixed reviews about the shop, but it’s important to form an opinion first hand and I always like trying to encourage new restaurants and food outlets in my own little way.

    Anyway, to cut a long story short, it was shut. No explanation of why on their web-site, at the shop or anywhere else. So, it was back to Grosvenor who, as usual, didn’t fail to deliver. I’m sure that there was a valid reason as to why it was closed, but that’s my sole attempt to go there (and yes, that was an unnecessary pun, solely because I was with James and he likes them).

  • London – DLR

    London – DLR

    Despite living by a DLR station for nearly two years, I never got bored of sitting at the front and pretending to drive the train….. One day I’ll manage not to find such ridiculous things so interesting….

    Anyway, here are the photos from a December journey pretending to be a train driver, part of a journey from Canary Wharf to Bank.

  • March – 38 West End

    March – 38 West End

    This property is one of the oldest in the town of March, with the central part dating to 1626, with extensions added in the nineteenth century. The town guide notes that, “inside, the house has elaborately carved wooden beams, one depicting the ‘Tree of Life’, the other grotesque heads and fantastic animals”. There are currently plenty of photos of the property at Zoopla and it looks like a building packed with character and history.

    Assuming that the houses haven’t been renumbered, in 1939, the house was occupied by Errol R Bassham and Violet M Bassham, along with their family. Errol worked as a bank cashier and was also an ARP warden, where Violet was a nurse for the Red Cross. Errol died in 1955 at the age of 60 and Violet appears to have become involved with local amateur dramatics.

  • March – Old Bank House

    March – Old Bank House

    This glorious building was constructed as a residential property in the seventeenth century, but was repurposed to become a National Provincial Bank in the 1840s. It is once again a residential property and the building is Grade II listed, with a note that an eighteenth century staircase remains in situ.

    There are some photos of the interior at the moment at Zoopla and the property sold recently for what seems a rather reasonable price. I don’t know when it stopped being a bank, but it was still open in 1916 and the manager at the time was Herbert N Shaw.

  • March – March Fountain

    March – March Fountain

    This puzzled me, as I was looking for the fountain and couldn’t initially see it, before I realised that it has been repurposed a little. And by repurposed, I mean it’s not a fountain at all. The fountain was constructed to mark the Coronation of King George V in 1911 and although this is also the date on the structure, it was unveiled in 1912.

    Modernisation got the better of the fountain though, as it was seen as a complete nuisance that drivers couldn’t see through it, so the fountain element of the, well, fountain, was removed. And they got rid of the troughs as well at the same time, as it was originally built to allow humans and animals to get water (the humans didn’t have to use the troughs).

    March’s lovely fountain, which has no water. Personally, I think it looks a little ridiculous stuck on this traffic island, bereft of its original functionality and with barriers to discourage anyone crossing the road to actually look at it properly.  It has now lost its original purpose and any real context.

    It was listed in 1985, so its history has at least been recognised, although I would like to think that Nikolaus Pevsner would have offered some sharp note about the fountain in its current state. The barriers have though offered some useful protection, as in early 2019 a drunk driver’s car was saved from damaging the fountain when the barriers took much of the force from the car when it left the road.

  • March – Marriage of Thomas Arks and Mary Ann Cadwell

    The marriage licences for the Cambridge area in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have been published, including many which required a bondsman, rather than the reading of banns in the church. This is a much more exciting method in my eyes, a bondsman would guarantee financially that the marriage was legitimate, rather than it just being read out in church over a few weeks.

    Picking names at random, Thomas Arks and Mary Ann Cadwell obtained a licence on 22 October 1750 to marry each other in March. The bondsman was Charles Cadwell, the father of the bride who worked as a grocer in March. Thomas Arks was also a grocer and I assume that he and Mary Ann got married at St Wendreda, the church in the town. This was also the church in 1778 where Arks was to be buried and also where Charles Cadwell had been laid to rest in 1763.

    Thomas Arks seems to been a relatively successful man, so being a grocer must have been a useful exercise. In 1753, he was paid £15 by the family of Bartholomew Ramsay for the young man to become an apprentice of Arks. This likely worked out well, as in turn Ramsay received £10 in 1762 to be the master to John Eaton, who also wanted to become an apprentice grocer.

    Unfortunately, the daily happenings and goings on at grocer shops in provincial towns during the mid-eighteenth century isn’t well recorded. So, to my knowledge, there is little more known around Thomas Arks……