This post is more about the history of the Louis Marchesi pub, but here’s a photo of a beer that I’ve had at the pub whilst on an ale trail…..
The pub has for most of its licensed life been known as the Waggon and Horses, with the adjoining road still having that name. It became a licensed premises at some point in the early 1780s and became a pub owned by the brewery Steward, Patteson & Steward. The timber frontage is not original, that came at the beginning of the early twentieth century in an attempt to make it look Tudor with a similar thing happening to the Maid’s Head located over the road.
It wasn’t though built to be a licensed premises, there was a fifteenth century residential property here and the undercroft of that building is still present. Although the Tudor frontage and the roof might be twentieth century, the timber frame of the structure is also fifteenth century, although much changed over the centuries.
Although Tombland, which the pub faces onto, might not have changed much, the adjoining Waggon and Horses Lane has a different character today. To the disappointment of the sanitary committee, a second slaughter house licence was granted to a property owner in the late 1880s.
It later became a pub operated by Watney Mann in the 1960s and in 1975 it was renamed as the Louis Marchesi. Erminio William Louis Marchesi (1898-1968) was a local Norwich man who founded the Round Table, designed to be a younger version of the Rotary Club. The late great George Plunkett doesn’t have an older photo of the pub, but he has one from 1989.
Going back to some previous licencees, Daniel Fiddymont was the landlord between 1822 and 1830, but there was a tragedy in 1829 when his wife died. That meant that he was left running a pub with five young children, it’s perhaps not a surprise that he remained at the venue for only a few more months.
There was another tragedy in July 1831, when the new landlord Henry Morris died at the age of 46, leaving a wife and ten children. His widow looked after the pub for a few months until it no doubt became unsustainable and the brewery advertised for a new landlord. Henry had been a brewer for the Steward, Patteson & Steward brewery for over twenty years. Every morning at 06:00 he served purl, which was a warm ale served often mixed with gin and milk, with soups available for lunch.
Taking over in October 1831, John Bushell advertised in the Norwich Mercury that he had taken on the inn, which suggests that it did provide accommodation of some sorts. He noted that he had London porter and fine ales on draught, alongside a similar bottled selection. He remained the landlord of the pub until his death in 1839.
In 1851, the pub was once again advertised to let and in the newspaper the brewery mentioned that it was “doing a good trade and has accommodation for fifty horses” and there remains a large yard at the back of the venue today.
Probably to the annoyance of the landlord, in 1925 the pub was refused a renewal of their Saturday afternoon licence as the police said that they had found that it had been “badly conducted” when they visited. The pub’s representative complained and the magistrate suggested that they seek legal advice, which must have felt sub-optimal to the venue at the time. This meant that they lost their ability to open between 15:00 and 17:30 which were compulsory closing periods at the time.
More recently, in 2004 the pub became more of a cafe bar arrangement and took the name ‘Take Five’ which felt sub-optimal from a historical perspective, but since 2017 it has now once again become a pub and retaken the Louis Marchesi name.
Today, the pub offers around four real ales and from my experience they’re usually from local breweries. The undercroft and private room upstairs can both be booked for private events, but I don’t think that they’re routinely open for the public. I do prefer when pubs keep their original names, but at least it has the Louis Marchesi one back now….
