Thursday 15 December 2016

Lost in The Fens


Youngest Boy started a new school this morning, and he now resides at Ashley Towers. Whilst he is quite content to sleep under a table in the scullery, I do feel obliged to shove everything up a bit so that he can stretch out a little. This means sorting through a stack of boxes to make his straw paillasse easier to access. One contained an enormous pile of photographs unseen for many years, the above being a prime example. The thing is, where is it? Not a quiz question, I've totally forgotten.
    The date would be sometime in the late 80s, the very approximate location Somewhere on The Fens in either Cambridgeshire or, more likely, Norfolk. That's it really; all I can add is that Bullards is a now defunct Norwich brewer, and Eric De MarĂ©’s photograph of the Coslany Street brewery can be found on page 102 of English Allsorts. And that it was almost certainly shot on my little Minox 35ML which fitted as neatly into my shirt pocket as a packet of Gold Flake.

    Of course there are even more questions when you come to think about it. Who drank here? Is the absence of a roadside window an indication of the covert drinking practices of the past? What was kept in the rickety lean-to? Whose are those cars peeping out from the back? (I certainly saw no one else near.) 

    Right, back to moving, rummaging, and dividing the bathroom in half.

Everyone can now relax. Thanks to the exceedingly thoughtful Roger Porter the location is no longer lost. It's the Butchers' Arms at Terrington St.Clement near to Walpole Cross Keys in Norfolk. Apparently it could look much the same and folk still live at one end. Thank you Roger!



10 comments:

Zephyrinus said...


Peter.

Good News. Bullers are now back producing beer.

The following Text is from http://cityofale.org.uk/2015/breweries/bullards/


"For more than a Century, Bullards was one of the major brewers in Norwich until it was sadly forced to close in 1985, but after 30 years the brand was revived in the Spring last year and now has its own 10 barrel brew kit, situated in the Redwell Brewery at Bracondale."

Peter Ashley said...

Thank you for that Zeph. I look forward to seeing Lacons again somewhere.

Dickie Straker said...

Hi Peter, lovely looking hostelry! It looks familiar.....not in the Kings Lynn area by any chance, just a thought? TTFN Dickie

Peter Ashley said...

Not far Dickie, see added note on blog.

Peter Ashley said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

What an estate agent might call a "character property". And character it certainly has, a large part of which is the chimney (and another one over the ridge by the looks of it). Imagine it without one. It would just look odd, like these modern dwellings built with shaved heads. I know that most people don't have a need or desire for chimneys these days but they just look unfinished to me.

Philip Wilkinson said...

Extraordinary. I must have been so near this place, as I've certainly been to Sutton Bridge and Walpole St Peter, both very near to it. But I have no recollection of it.

Your picture (the colours, the decay, the sign, the noses of those cars) indeed looks like something from over 30 years ago. Are there any more such wonders in the Ashley crate of memories?

Gawain said...

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/337780

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JohnF said...

I have had some bad drinks in some worse looking places.