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Lost Pub

SimonSherbot

By SimonSherbot
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SimonSherbot

SimonSherbot

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Hello, I recently returned to the area, which I have done quite a few times over the last five decades but this time I decided to seek out a pub that I went to in July 1972. Needless to say, I could not find it and my searching on the internet did not give it up either.

I am wondering whether anyone with a lifelong local knowledge can suggest which pub it is or more probably was.

It was during a week long Broads holiday with a school chum when we were 16 and I had already been dating my wife for over a year. On realising that I was trying to identify this pub my wife produced two postcards that I sent her at the time in case they gave a clue but sadly only one card mentions pubs and only to say there are four pubs in Horning. 

My chum and I covered a great deal of the Broads in that short week, so the pub in question could be anywhere.

The evening in question was a very warm one and upon managing to buy some alcoholic drinks we sat in the rather pleasant garden laughing over our numerous sailing mishaps (how we didn’t get killed is a matter of sheer luck). The garden was quite large and to the end of the pub (garden on the right looking from the river). It was an old pub even then and I believe it had a narrow road running across the front/back of the pub with small old houses on the other side facing both the pub and garden. I think the pub was on the river bank but having looked on Google maps and not finding anything that dovetails with my description, I have started to doubt myself.

In my minds eye I remember the pub as being rendered or painted pebble dash but whether after fifty years my idealised memory of a great evening has become muddled or invented, I don’t know.

If it does still exist then I would love to return there with my wife of 46 years with whom I have been lucky enough to have five children and blessed with half a dozen or so grandchildren.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

Simon
 

 

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LizG

LizG

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A lot of pubs may still exist but they have been altered/extended since your visit.  The New Inn in Horning might be your pub with old houses behind and what could be considered a narrow lane behind it, alternatively even the Anchor (now gone at Coltishall) but that was quite a unique design

Edited to say the New Inn used to have grass and a big tree

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LizG

LizG

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16 minutes ago, ranworthbreeze said:

.....it could have been the Stathe & Willow which had a good sized garden, the gable and is painted white.

Regards

Alan

Staithe & Willow was Cissy Lant's house that many years ago. The other pub described could have been the Black Horse although not Horning?

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Flash

Flash

Posted
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21 minutes ago, LizG said:

Staithe & Willow was Cissy Lant's house that many years ago. The other pub described could have been the Black Horse although not Horning?

Maybe it was Wroxham? Wasn't there a pub on the river bank, going into Wroxham many years ago? 

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Vaughan

Vaughan

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I agree with Liz and would tend towards the Anchor at Coltishall, which had a mooring dyke from the river, with garden at the right as you walk up to the pub.  Rendered walls with Dutch style gable ends.  Houses on the other side of the lane which led down to Clifford Allen's boatyard.

The pub building is still there but no longer a pub. I have a photo somewhere, but it may take me while to find it!

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SimonSherbot

SimonSherbot

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Thank you for all your suggestions. Seems that no pictures exist of the outside of the Black Horse. The Petersfield is a possibility when looking at a postcard of it on eBay but it is not a good angle. The Staithe and Willow is also a possibility but the garden seems much smaller than I remember, although of course some of it could have been sold off for housing. I am still looking at the other suggestions. 

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SimonSherbot

SimonSherbot

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Thank you so much to all of you who have taken the trouble to help me, when my cry for help must seem to be about a very trivial matter. Griff’s postcard picture of the The Anchor at Coltishall does make a stronger case for this being the one. If the New Inn once had a bigger garden, then this would certainly elevate it up the short list. Such a shame that someone hasn’t written a history (or perhaps they have) of the Broads pubs with pictures. The Black Horse might well be the one but it seems nothing but an internal photograph survives. If the pub I seek has gone, then it is a crying shame because it was so lovely. My village is lucky enough to have six pubs and my wife and I have been in the oldest (the 16th Century Black Horse) tonight but here too one is teetering on the brink. I suppose one cannot expect them to exist just because we don’t like change. It is a great shame when one thinks about the countless days and evenings where for the most part much convivial conversation and fun has taken place in them for many generations. If only walls could talk.

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RumPunch

RumPunch

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Shame - I got to Colt just after the Anchor must have closed. Would have liked to have experienced that AND the Eagle in Neatishead.

I remember as a young 18 year old cycling from RAF Coltishall, exploring the various lanes, byways... and pubs. One clear recollection was finding the Black Shed on the staithe at Barton Turf and thinking how scenic it was. Funny to think I'd later be living in the village ( which also has no pubs now, of course )

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LizG

LizG

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The Black Horse wasn't by the river - I still think it has to be either the New Inn or the Anchor.  New Inn was pretty basic in the 1970s just two simple bars but with a big garden.  Anchor then was plusher, did had a resturarant but also had plenty of moorings.  Finding a photo of the New Inn in the 1970s seems quite hard!

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LizG

LizG

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Stuck with Vaughan's third photo - just wondered whether it was inside the Black Horse?  Going back to the New Inn its a real struggle to find a 1970s photo of the exterior.  If not probably the Buck!!

Here is a Francis Frith photo from the 1960s which really does show a very different pub.  No out buildings what so ever and covered in Ivy.

https://www.francisfrith.com/horning/horning-the-new-inn-c1965_h116117

I also found this photo which I think should be credited to Craig Slawson which shows the grass and the big willow tree but still with the extensions - looks possibly 1980s or 90s?

Liz

ACFBB7.jpg

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