**** it it’s (a) fine (city)
November 2023. Norwich.
16:25. The train leaves Norwich in less than half an hour, best head back, eh ?
Quite a bit of street art for you in the underpass leading to St Stephens Street.
That one is for our own DAVE, who probably gets the cultural reference in the blogpost title.
Norwich really is improving, some really good stuff,
but you’ll really only come here for the churches pubs.
That bloke who parked his bike in the churchyard had had one too many. Rather like me, unable to walk past the Woolpack. There’s something about pubs at dusk; even Greene King pubs.
“The Abbot’s gone, I’m afraid” says the barman, possibly the saddest words of 2023.
And I suspect I haven’t uncovered a hidden classic for you, hiding behind John Lewis.
A hundred screens showing Chelsea v City (don’t tell me the score), seating around beer barrels, an IPA that’s made very NBSS 3 by the imposition of the dreaded thin glass.
Can’t win ’em all.
I very nearly popped in the Compleat (sic) Angler,
but at the door I remembered I was only going in for the loo, and saved that for the station, where (of course) the 16:54 was cancelled.
Luckily, the next late train somehow arrived at Ely before an even more delayed train left for Waterbeach, which frankly is the sort of luck I need at the moment.
retiredmartin 
“The Abbot’s gone, I’m afraid” could have been answered with with “got a sermon to write ?”
“hiding behind John Lewis” – but not the Richmond brewer ?
Yet more of those rose roundels but I can’t work out which local brewer they were from.
Thorpe railway station was a familiar sight.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve had a look at some other pub photos on Pubs Galore and WhatPub, and found that same sort of design with the rose roundels on the Leopard and the Jubilee in Norwich. Can’t find any info to link these two with the Compleat Angler and the Unthank so far.
LikeLike
Will,
Thanks. So that makes at least five of them. I’ve asked someone in Norwich about them.
They’re similar to the larger “eagle and hop” ones of Butlers Brewery, in Stafford lost from the former Kings Head a couple of years ago and one gone from the Baths Hotel / Tavern a few weeks ago.
whatpub.com/pubs/STA/2968/kings-head-stafford
LikeLike
Former Bullards pubs I’d imagine is the connection assuming it’s not just some quirk of Norwich architecture.
LikeLike
I think the Jubilee and the Unthank were Bullards pubs, the Leopard S&P and I don’t know about the other two.
LikeLike
Not a bad idea when you decide to do it. That title a Olivia Rodrigo reference?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Down wiv the kidz, Dave.
New Dylan at Budokan on my Tidal playlist tonight. Reissues ?
LikeLike
Getting great reviews from the Bobcats, but they are complaining about the cost like old guys complain about the cost of a pint.
LikeLike
Nah.
Here’s the second of more than five on a Proper Sunday:
LikeLiked by 1 person
You might have had better luck at the Compleat Angler – certainly beer-wise.
I enjoyed a couple of pints there before, on the way back to the station. That was during daylight hours though, and quite a few years ago. Some international football competition was being televised at the time, but I managed to escape it by taking my beer outside, and sat on the terrace, overlooking the river.
LikeLiked by 1 person
But did Staffordian Izaac Walton ever get to Norwich ?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Those Stafford drinkers get everywhere, I hear.
LikeLike
Allegedly he heard a fellow angler singing, didn’t know where Ibiza was and so decided on the Norfolk Broads for his next holiday. That of course was before Watneys.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good cultural reference, Paul.
LikeLike