Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Dereham

Dereham Pub Day – Romany Rye

Fourth in the day’s Dereham adventure that Julian and I were partaking in was the JD Wetherspoon operated Romany Rye, a pub that I’ve visited many times before. I’ve always found it a reliable and well-run pub, it’s a 2011 conversion of a pub and hotel dating from the 1960s when it was known as the Phoenix. It remains a hotel today and I’ve stayed here before, the rooms are well appointed and I remember them being comfortable and reasonably priced.

In terms of the pub name, I’ve just pinched the text from JD Wetherspoon’s web-site:

“One of the most imaginative prose writers of the 19th century, George Borrow was born on the outskirts of East Dereham in 1803, the son of an army captain, who bewitched a local girl while recruiting in the town. Educated at Norwich Grammar School, Borrow later took to the road. He could speak 20 languages, with his travels providing material for his best books The Bible in Spain, Lavengro and Romany Rye. Borrow eventually retired to the Norfolk Broads, where he died alone in 1881.”

There was incidentally a pub of the same name on Colman Road in Norwich, but then Enterprise Inns purchased it, ruined it and it’s lost now.

Julian made himself comfortable in the pub’s rather decadent furniture.

There were eight different real ales available, I’m fairly sure that this is the widest choice available in the town. The service was polite, prompt and efficient with the pub being comfortable, inviting and organised. As would be expected from the chain, the prices were firmly towards the lower end of the scale.

And today’s entry in the blurred photo of the day award…. Anyway, this is the Summa That from Branscombe Vale Brewery, a well kept but slightly dull affair. We also got a coffee each and I went, unusually, for a caffeine option as we both needed a little energy burst following our lunches. It’s hard work this pub visiting, I’m not sure that everyone realises that.

I’m not sure whether or not Stephen Fry has popped into the Romany Rye, but he is a local man.

The pub is well reviewed for a Wetherspoons, so they’re clearly doing a lot right. I had a little virtual meander through the reviews to see what interested me.

“Went there for a meal and the 3oz American style burger and the 6oz American style burger. Absolutely delicious. My Friend had the chicken meal with the chicken bites and mini wings. Tasted off and later this evening was sick everywhere! Defiantly chicken as it was in the sick! Disappointed.”

This absolutely isn’t how food hygiene works and I have to give JD Wetherspoon credit for being one of the best rated chains in the national food scoring schemes that are operated by local councils.

“Would come more often if I could bring my dog along to sit inside, but opp for more dog friendly pubs.”

Just to balance this, I would come in less often if the pub resembled a doggery. I don’t think that’s actually a word, but I like it, so it’s staying.

“Shocked that even though they don’t close till 1 they stop letting in before 12:45! Any other spoons will let you in to buy a drink until the closing time at the bar! Poor service and too interested in getting out early than serving customers!”

I might incur the wrath of Julian by writing this, but this doesn’t seem an unreasonable policy to me. I’ve had many early mornings of clearing customers out of a pub and if you serve someone at 00:45 and then tell them to drink straight up and go then the customer is unlikely to be surprised and delighted. Well, surprised maybe actually, but definitely not delighted.

“3 teens were kicked out on Sunday for not carrying ID to prove that they were 16. Which 16 year olds carries ID!? They had already payed for their food so the staff poorly wrapped up their food in tin foil and shoved it in a pizza box then made to get out. They were then left out in the cold to eat their food in the freezing cold even though they had payed full price to eat in. The staff could have just warned the children to bring ID next time, it’s not like they were ordering alcohol.”

There are about ten reviews like this and this is indeed JD Wetherspoon policy. But, it doesn’t feel right, if the pub has served the customers and charged them money, this situation is clearly sub-optimal. There’s something rather nice about a group of mates going politely to a pub and getting themselves a meal without alcohol.

“Told couldn’t come down from our room till 7am bit stupid.”

I don’t understand this, the hotel rooms have 24 hour access. Unless the guest wanted to sit in the pub area before 07:00….. JD Wetherspoon don’t have a social media presence, which I personally think is a mistake, so they never respond to reviews like this and I’d quite like to know what actually happened here. I accept that I probably need to get out more, but I like listening to a bit of drama.

“Landlord if he don’t like the look of you send staff over to ask you too leave will not give a reason”

This is the sort of thing I want to know more about….

Anyway, I’ve got distracted reading reviews again, but this was in my mind a well managed chain pub. There was a wide choice of ales, they were well kept and the prices were low. The pub is comfortable, there’s wi-fi and plenty of power points, with the surroundings being clean and comfortable. Tim Martin might come in for criticism, but even though I don’t agree with his politics, I’d suggest that he knows how to run pubs.

April 21, 2023
Dereham Pub Day – Red Lion

The third pub on our Dereham day out was the Red Lion located just off the market place and operated by Craft Union, part of Stonegate. It’s another pub with a long heritage and has been trading here since the 1770s. A minor quirk that slightly intrigues me is that the street by the marketplace is named Red Lion Street after the pub, but recently the official address of the pub has been changed to Quebec Street.

The pub doesn’t serve real ale, so I opted for John Smiths which was served just a little too cold, it almost needed time to defrost and the taste was nearly entirely lost. However, the prices were very low and the service was efficient and helpful.

At some point a thoughtful renovation has taken place here and an interesting map placed onto the wall, something which Stonegate do a fair amount when they’re trying to brighten up pubs. Unfortunately, I’m not sure this is how the designers intended this to look.

As for the pub, it seems to be aiming for the cheap beer market and that’s certainly going to be a challenging strategy. There was loud music playing, lots of shouting, plenty of drunkenness and that’s not bad going for an early Thursday afternoon. It’s obviously not for me to criticise that as variety in pubs is the spice of life, but now that I’m over 30 I’m not sure that I’m in that demographic. Well, not until the late evening anyway.

It is what it is, it’s loud and vibrant, but not unfriendly, I can imagine that there’s plenty of interesting stories that come out of here and it was certainly pulling the customers in so that can’t be bad.

April 21, 2023
Dereham Pub Day – George Hotel

The George Hotel was second on the list of pubs in Dereham that Julian and I were visiting, a large venue which is also a restaurant and hotel. The hotel element comprises of six bedrooms, a couple apparently with vintage four poster beds, currently priced at between £79 to £89 per night.

There’s plenty of history about the George at the Norfolk Pubs web-site, but this intrigued me:

“The bowling green was reputed to be over 300 years old, one of the oldest in England – when tarmac surface laid over it during 1986 (?), to allow car parking.”

This sounds sub-optimal to me.

There were two real ales on, the Pedigree from Marston’s Brewery and the Ghost Ship from Adnams. It’s not always entirely clear at some locations, but those just wanting a drink are welcome here and the bar area is open throughout the day.

I went for the Pedigree and it tasted as I expected, seemed well kept and was at the appropriate slightly chilled temperature.

We didn’t have any plans on where to eat for our day trip out, but the menu here looked reasonable and the dining area was also busy, which seemed a positive sign. The pricing also wasn’t unreasonable in this current climate of rapid food and drink price inflation.

The menu promised a large bowl of whitebait and I was suspicious of that as I have a different definition of “large bowl” to some restaurants. However, this really was excellent for £10 and I struggled to get through all of the whitebait, which was a larger portion than this photo suggests as there was more buried at the bottom. The whitebait was evenly coated so I didn’t have to stare into the eyes of the fish, the salad was dressed and the ciabatta was soft. I was suitably impressed by this whole arrangement, with Julian also commenting positively about his pan fried calves’ liver, which was too decadent a dish for me.

The dining area was pleasant, clean and comfortable. There was table service offered and the staff member was personable, welcoming and engaging, with service always being attentive and not intrusive.

These were too technical for me, fortunately Julian was able to work out how I was able to get salt and pepper. This sort of engineering knowledge is what I usually rely on my friend Liam to provide.

This is an overflow part of the pub and this was formerly a shop, note the Victorian bowed shopfront window at the rear.

The venue has plenty of character internally and there are also some live music events taking place here.

As for the reviews, they’re fairly positive, but this is one of the most ridiculous that I’ve read and I can imagine the George’s annoyance at this:

“Can’t say much good about it, ordered two lemonades and lime for ladies and were brought over in pint glass, ladies don’t drink like that, not even the offer of half pint.”

I thought these attitudes had been dumped in the 1970s, I’m bemused to see such piffle still being propagated. The owner responded suggesting that it might have been an idea to order a half if that’s what they wanted.

As an aside, not only is the venue listed, but so is the milestone at the front.

Anyway, I very much liked the character of this venue and also the friendly welcome. The service was informal, there were a couple of beer options and I left having eaten too much, so that seems a result to me.

April 21, 2023
Dereham Pub Day – Cherry Tree

The first pub on our Dereham Pub Day was the Cherry Tree, one of the oldest hospitality venues in the town which has been trading since the late eighteenth century. There were fears that a closure in January 2011 might become permanent, but it was reopened in December 2012 and has remained open since serving the denizens of Dereham.

The pub was once at the entrance to Dereham’s pig market, which is today the main car park for the town. Norfolk Record Office has the diaries of John Fenn which he wrote between 1786 and 1794, which apparently mentions multiple incidents of trouble at the Cherry Tree pub. I’ll add that to my long list of things to request at the Record Office as I’m intrigued what trouble was going on in the parish back then, I suspect it’s not dissimilar to the trouble the police currently deal with in the area. Also whilst I’m writing about the Record Office, this is an interesting article about the marriage of one of their landlords, Mahershalalhashbaz Tuck.

There’s also a story from the ever fascinating Norfolk Pubs web-site, noting:

“On July 31st 1856, Mr. Burke, who was staying at the Half Moon, had visited the Cherry Tree and sat drinking with the girls until midnight. The two girls took him across fields to a stack where they lay down and he fell asleep. When he awoke the girls were gone and he could not account for his money. Several witnesses proved that he had spent freely in the public house and the girls were acquitted.”

The pub recently posted this photo on their Facebook page, the pub is on the right. The full version of this photo, where you can see the actual pub, is at https://norfolk.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/ENQ/WPAC/BIBENQ?SETLVL=&BRN=712043.

Half a pint of Hobgoblin Gold from Wychwood and this was adequate, although not perhaps at its best. There were two beers on, this and the Coronation Ale from Greene King which has the sort of scoring on Untappd which is what I expect from the brewery. I like that the brewer’s signature has been placed on the pump clip, I suppose that they want someone to take responsibility and that’s a clever way of doing it.

For reasons that I don’t think I want to investigate, Julian was excited at the branding from Fosters and took out one of the brewery’s bar mats from his pocket. I think he gifted it to the pub to add to their marketing and I’m hoping he was more impressed by the wording on the bar mat than the beer itself.

The welcome was friendly and immediate with a feel that this is a community pub which seems non judgemental, it was a suitably inviting venue. There are no negative reviews on Google, I have to congratulate any pub which has managed not to annoy anyone over the last ten years. They don’t serve food, but they show sports and there are a number of community events which take place here, not least the weekly live music. Too often pubs don’t sell their distinct offering very well, but there’s an external sign at the Cherry Tree which mentions that they’re the town’s “number 1 live music venue” which seems like clear and useful marketing to me.

The reviews of the venue often mention “this is a proper drinking pub” and that seems to be a fair description.

April 21, 2023
Dereham – Church of St. Nicholas (Robert Larner)

Located in the churchyard of Dereham Church is this gravestone commemorating the life of Robert Larner. He was born in 1819 and was married to Sarah Yull in 1847.

At the 1851 census, Robert lived at Toftwood Common, along with his wife Sarah, who was five years younger than him. They had two children at this time, Richard who was aged 2, and Matilda, who had only just been born, with Robert working as a farm labourer. Matilda was married in 1879, sadly after the death of her father.

Robert died on 17 May 1868, at the age of 48, and was buried on 21 May 1868. Unfortunately, the words at the bottom of his grave are no longer readable and his age in the church’s burial book states that he was 49.

So, there’s not much that I could find out, but I can almost imagine a 19-year old Richard and a 17-year old Matilda standing there on a Thursday afternoon (and I checked, it was a Thursday….) burying their father. And on 6 August 1879, Matilda would have no doubt have walked over to the gravestone when she was married in the same church, to a William George Hall from Hove in Brighton. I think my imagination is getting a bit vivid with the stories I’m creating in my mind here…..

July 27, 2020
Dereham – Church House

Church House overlooks Dereham Church and was built in the late seventeenth century to be used by a representative of the church.

In the early nineteenth century, the property was lived in by James Philo who served as the parish clerk between 1779 and 1829. The sign on the property notes that he featured in George Borrow’s book ‘Lavengro’, the sequel of which was Romany Rye, now the name of the JD Wetherspoon pub which stands around twenty metres away.

The rear of the property, which backs onto the churchyard. The building is still used by the church and is now the parish office.

July 27, 2020
Dereham – Former Manor House

This property is located opposite the entrance to Dereham Church and was originally the Manor House of Oldhall and Syrricks, which sounds very grand. This building dates to the seventeenth century, although was refaced and modernised in the eighteenth century. The pedimented doorcase is apparently original, although I’m going off the word of others here on that….

The building is also known less excitingly today as 27 Church Street and it has been converted into flats. It’s a larger building than it appears from the front, as there’s a long section behind the property as well. One of the flats came onto the market recently and I like how they’ve converted the attic space.

July 27, 2020
Dereham – Church of St. Nicholas (Where are the Older Gravestones?)

One mystery that Richard and I have been discussing on our church walks is where are the gravestones from before 1800? The Hancock Cemetery in Quincy, Massachusetts has many gravestones from the eighteenth century surviving, but in most (but not all of course) churchyards in the UK, there is relatively little before 1800. There are usually some tombs inside churches that are older, but it’s rare to see gravestones from that period outside.

And so I’ve been reading up on this…. The answer seems to be complex, as history usually is.

The first element is practical, gravestones aren’t necessarily that resilient and weren’t really designed to last for hundreds of years. Stone erodes, gravestones fall and sometimes they have to be removed because they’re badly damaged.

The second element is that grave markers before 1800 were often made from wood, which is unlikely to last for much more than fifty years. They were ornately carved in many cases, but not designed to be in their place for centuries. There are some of these at the churchyard in Matlock, but they’re relatively rare now.

The third element is that most people couldn’t afford a stone gravestone, they’d be expensive and the stone would often have to be imported into the area. Transporting lumps of rock isn’t cheap, it all adds to the cost and a poor family couldn’t have necessarily afforded this. In some areas, rock is more prevalent and this was evident in churchyards such as those as Eyam in Derbyshire, where there are more stones from before 1800.

The fourth element is that in some churchyards, there wasn’t that much space. Anything older might have been removed in an effort to create space for new burials.

So, with all those elements combined, it’s more surprising that there are any stones left at all. But, they are there, I found a handful of eighteenth-century gravestones standing in Dereham’s churchyard whilst meandering around today. I also found something I haven’t seen before, eighteenth-century gravestones (and some later ones) which have been laid down and have since been mostly covered over by grass.

These stones are hard to read, but I could make out a few eighteenth-century dates. They appear to have been moved here at a later date, for reasons that are unknown to me. But, this was an interesting example of where in a churchyard the stones have gone, a handful are still present, a handful have likely been lost and a few have been left to be covered over.

I suspect I shall return to these thoughts again as I debate with myself exactly where gravestones in Britain have gone….

July 27, 2020
Dereham – Church of St. Nicholas (George Dunn)

There was no particular reason that I photographed this gravestone at the Church of St. Nicholas in Dereham, but it’s of George Dunn, who died on 12 December 1861 at the age of 50.

The probate record remains for George, which noted:

“Effects worth under £450. The will of George Dunn, late of East Dereham, in the County of Norfolk. Shoemaker, deceased who died on 12 December 1861 at East Dereham, aforesaid was proved at Norwich by the oath of George Jackson of East Dereham, aforesaid carpenter and sole executor”.

The effects value were in bands, of which £450 wasn’t the lowest, and very roughly (and relying on the National Archives currency calculator), it was probably around £25,000 in today’s money. George wasn’t likely a poor man, although that’s relative in this period, during his life as he was a registered elector due to being a freeholder property owner.

George was born in April 1811, the son of John Dunn, and he was baptised at the Church of St. Nicholas. He married Susan Clarke on 30 October 1844, again at the same church. The 1851 census gives a picture of what life was like for George, when he was living on Norwich Road in Dereham. He was aged 40, working as a shoemaker, married to Susan Dunn (born in Thetford), who was aged 37, as well as living with his children William R (aged 5) and Anna J (aged 4). He was also living with his father, John Dunn, who had been born in 1782 and worked as a tailor, by this time aged 69 and widowed.

By the 1861 census, they lived in the same property as in 1851, with John and Susan still living with William and Anna. William was by this time working as a watchmaker and Anna was still at school. Still teenagers, it must have been a difficult life for the family when George died a few months after the census was taken.

It was evident just how common theft was in Victorian Britain, with George being a victim of crime when in July 1855 a pair of wellington boots was stolen from his shop. Maria Barlow, an eighteen-year old bootmaker, was found guilty of the crime and sent to prison for six months.

The church in Dereham clearly played a great part in George’s life. From when he was baptised with his family present, excited about the future, to when he got married to what I assume was more excitement and then to his funeral service and burial.

July 22, 2020
Dereham – Church of St. Nicholas (Richard Peacock)

This is another in my series of wanting to find out whatever stories are possible from gravestones, for no real reason other than being intrigued about how much information still remains about a person.

This is the grave of Richard Peacock, who died on 28 April 1856, at the age of 36. The burial record remains and gives his full name, Richard Henry Peacock, buried on Sunday 4 May 1856.

That gives us sufficient information to find Richard on the 1851 census, where he was listed as living with his wife Mary Ann and his 1-year old son, Henry William Peacock. Richard was working as a machine maker and he had been born in Warham (a village in North Norfolk), whilst his wife who was also born in 1820 came from London. At this census, Richard and family were living on Theatre Road, which I assume is the same as Theatre Street in the town today.

Going back to the 1841 census, Richard was living in Binham with his parents, Henry and Ann, as well as numerous siblings. Richard and Mary Ann (nee Roper) married in the church in Dereham in 1848.

The Norwich Mercury reported in January 1856 that Jeremiah Oakley, a machine maker, had been arrested and charged with the theft of two match planes, three chisels and one gouge that belonged to Richard Peacock of Dereham. Given that these were tools used by machine makers, this is likely the same Richard Peacock. In March 1856, the trial took place and more information came to light, which was that Oakley worked with Peacock, who had been ill in late 1855 and noticed the missing items. The court wasn’t convinced and Oakley was found not guilty, although this does now give some background to the illness that may have caused Richard’s death in the April of 1856.

Richard’s grave also notes “also two of his children”, suggesting that they died young. Henry William Peacock, Richard’s son, did survive and was married in 1873, living in Dereham with his family until his death in the first few years of the twentieth century. So, that’s as much as I can find, it’s a life which sounds like it was challenging and led to a relatively early death. It is also sad that the last few months of Richard’s life were mired in part with the court case of some of his items being stolen.

July 22, 2020