Woods End takes it to the Edge

IT’S all change at The Woods End at Bramerton. This historic pub re-opened just over a week ago with a complete new look. In fact it’s now “Water’s Edge, Woods End” with new leaseholder Lee Webb determined to throw off a bad reputation – especially online. That’s the power of Tripadvisor: that’s the tyranny of Tripadvisor some would say.

The master plan, says Lee, is to make the Water’s Edge a “destination restaurant” with the main market being the thousands of people down the road in Norwich. Wherryman’s Way walkers will rejoice that it’s to become an all-day venue too. He’s not there yet, but the plan is for an 8am start with breakfast, coffee and Danish pastries available for hungry ramblers.

And while he’s a leaseholder, he stresses that he pays rent  to a property management company rather than a pub chain. In other words he’s not tied, drinks-wise. Real ale fans are offered Greene King IPA, Old Speckled Hen and Woodforde’s Wherry. On the menu; starters of leek and potato soup, crispy pork belly, pan-seared queen scallops, salmon gravadlax and icelandic prawns; the mains are more crispy pork belly, crispy chilli beef, pan-seared sea bass and char-grilled sirloin steak. Starters are £5 or £6. Mains vary from £8.95 to £18.95.

Above all, he stresses, he wants to be reliable. Always open, seven days a week, without the annoying hand-written “Due to Family Illness…” notes that have been known here in the past.

So can he make a go of it? Maybe it’s because I’ve written so many of these New Dawn pieces that I’ve grown a bit more world-weary with each one. Lee’s answer though, is resolutely upbeat. “I’m going to bring service back to the industry,” he says. “If you’re going to have to keep getting up to get served you might as well be at home. We’ll come to you and we’ll look after you.”

There’s been no big launch yet. He’s been happy to let people find him so far. But 130 covers for Mothering Sunday wasn’t bad for Day Three. Good luck to you, Sir.

* Read about the last new dawn at Woods End in 2010 and my bid for “Boots as well as boats” in 2009.

My Woods End manifesto: boots as well as boats

THE LEASE for the Woods End pub in Bramerton is up for sale - £55,000 makes it yours according to an article this weekend in the Evening News. It's a big old pub with a proud history. A hundred-odd years ago there were "pleasure gardens" behind the building which were "justly celebrated for their rustic elegance" according to one Victorian author.
It survives on its location. It's simply screams "swift pint" as you travel down river by boat. But I think good locations can make landlords lazy. Current leaseholder Martin Wormell told the paper that he relied on summer trade because "there are very few locals". Well up to a point. My request for the new owners is to think about boots as well as boats. Anyone setting off early to walk the Wherryman's Way from Norwich or Whitlingham gets to the Woods End at about 10am gasping for cup of tea. What they get at that time is a closed pub.
For me the successful boozers are the ones that go and search out their customers. Ask Sonia at the Surlingham Ferry House for example who opens up specially for walking groups. Or Simon at the White Horse in Chedgrave, who put on a great kiddy-friendly fireworks display the other week. Us customers are still out there you know. You just have to work a little harder to get us through the door.

Welcome to the Woods End

FROM dealing with demanding away fans at a hotel in the centre of Ipswich to an idyllic riverside pub on the Norfolk Broads, it’s been a big change for the new couple in charge at the Woods End. Phil George and Paula Kirk took over here a month ago, but spent the first two weeks on a thorough clear out. In came the plumbers, out went the carpets.Ten skips have been filled with the detritus from this huge, magnificent boozer on the banks of the Yare. Longer term, says Paula, the plan is to extend the kitchen and have a second restaurant in a big function room upstairs. But for this summer at least they’ll concentrate on slowly but surely getting the word out. And what about my “boots as well as boats” manifesto? In other words will they look after Wherryman’s Way walkers who tend to arrive at a closed pub during the morning, gasping for a cup of tea? Well Paula’s on the case. Once all the paperwork is done, she says, they’ll get a licence to open up early. Good stuff eh? Oh and they bought a copy of my book. Well, with the Woods End on the front cover, it would have been rude not to….

Roll up for the Rockland rollercoaster

IF you’ve visited the Woods End pub at Bramerton recently you’ll know that it’s had a very smart facelift. Now it turns out that the man behind all that painting and decorating is about to re-open The New Inn at Rockland with his wife. And yes this one’s had a few quid spent on it too.

Andy and Gail Cadey have lived in Rockland for a few months. Seeing what was happening at the new look “Water’s Edge, Woods End” seems to have persuaded them to take the plunge a few miles down the Wherryman’s Way. Gail will be the boss, Andy will help out, but continue with the day job. And tomorrow is D-Day. The doors open at 7pm. Hold on tight as they become at least the fifth couple in three years to give the Rockland New Inn rollercoaster a whirl.

“We’ve spent a lot of money improving the interior,” Andy told me today. “It had an exterior facelift 18 months or so ago, but it was looking a bit tired inside.”

“We’ve improved the play area as well. We’ve made it secure, there’s only one way in and out now. We want to be a really good family-orientated pub where you can come and have a home-cooked meal. We’ve got a great chef too.”

For the moment the Cadeys aren’t on a lease. It’s a temporary deal with pub owners Punch to allow both sides to test the water. But the clear ambition is for the long term.

The bank holiday weekend is nearly upon us and the weather looks good. As ever guys, the very best of luck.

* See how wrong my prediction of a long lay-off was here.

“Water’s Edge, Woods End

New beginning for the Woods End

GOOD news from Bramerton. The Woods End pub is to re-open on Saturday. And given that this beautiful riverside pub features on the front page of my book …it hasn’t come a moment too soon! Good luck to new tenants Philip and Paula. This is a perfect “location” boozer at which to enjoy a quiet pint on the way home. I’ll do exactly that – and report back – next week. More on why it closed here.

Woods End: nothing till at least May

WHAT next for the Woods End pub at Bramerton after it closed a month ago? Well the pub is one of 850 to be owned by the Wellington Pub Company down in Buckinghamshire. Their man tells me that it was under lease until May …presumably complicating plans for the future. However “we are currently making plans to re-let and re-open this site as soon as possible,” he says. He promises to keep me posted …which is exactly what he did when Coldham Hall – the company’s other Wherryman’s Way pub - got into trouble a year or so back. Of course Coldham Hall has since risen from the ashes under a new team. Let’s hope for a similar result up in Bramerton.

WW pub crisis: now The Woods End closes down

YOU might recall my theory a couple of weeks ago that one Wherryman’s Way pub was always in crisis. The Loddon Swan was in the limelight then because its management company had gone into administration. Well right theory, wrong pub. Last Sunday – the very day that Coldham Hall re-opened – The Woods End at Bramerton closed its doors. Another classic riverside pub falls victim to the economic slowdown.Landlord Martin Wormell was holding a clearout bonfire in the back garden this lunchtime. He blames a combination of two wet summers and one cold winter for failing to make ends meet. He has also noticed a big reduction in the number of hire cruisers making it this far up the Yare. So what will the pub’s owners do next? “Well it’s too important a pub to leave closed for the summer,” he told me. “They’ll get someone in, but I’m walking away with nothing.” Perhaps the next landlord has got to go down the Coldham Hall route; modernise and aim at the locals. Oh and they might want to glance at my “Boots as well as Boats” post too. The pub market is changing, fast.

Billy Bluelight rides again

BILLY Bluelight was a Norfolk eccentric who – in the absence of a welfare state – lived on his wits and his charm. He’s one of the Wherryman’s Way most iconic characters, famous for racing the steam pleasure boats along the River Yare from Bramerton to Norwich – hoping for spare change from the passengers on board. His equally famous rhyme – which has to be delivered in a Victorian Norfolk accent - runs as follows:

“My name is Billy Bluelight, my age is 45. I hope to get to Carrow Bridge before the boat arrive.”

Incidentally, it works a lot better if you say “Carra” for Carrow. I mention him here because he’s just been reincarnated outside Rosy Lee’s teashop in Loddon as part of this weekend’s Scarecrow Festival in the town. Rosy Lee’s is run by Caroline Dwen, who “commissioned” it from one of her regular customers. You’ll see the rhyme has been updated in the shop’s honour.

Billy Bluelight gets a good mention in my book including this charming memory from one of the dozens of people who wrote into the EDP after his death in 1949.  This man’s family houseboat was moored every year at Bramerton:

“At half past eleven or so every morning, the tinkle of a harp would intrude upon the cooing of the wood pigeons, heralding the approach of the Yarmouth Belle or the Waterfly with her big freight of Yarmouth trippers bound for Norwich.

“Simultaneously, a strange figure would take up a stance just past the houseboat. Clad in shorts and a singlet, and hung with a prodigious array of medals, his expansive smile seemed to be exactly duplicated at a higher level by the peak of a gaily-striped cricket cap.”

He would deliver his rhyme and then sprint off.

“At the Woods End he would be no more than level, but once out of sight he was able to gain a bit on the short cut across the Whitlingham Sewerage Farm, to reappear neck and neck by the old limekiln at Crown Point.

Once more Billy would disappear from view, and while the boat passed very slowly through bends and narrow waters unsuited to her, Billy had to make the detour over Trowse Bridge; but by the time Carrow Bridge was reached (the old bridge by Carrow Works) there would be Billy, ready to receive the well-earned plaudits of the trippers and the coppers thrown onto the path by the Boom Tower.

Year after year the performance was repeated, but Billy’s age remained 45! This may have been for the sake of the rhyme, but there was enough of the Peter Pan in him to have justified it on other grounds. Peace to his memory.”

 

If you can’t make Loddon this weekend, a more permanent statue can be found outside the Woods End pub. Peace to his memory indeed.

Bramerton on Sea - complete with shells

TIME for a gentle geology lesson from Bramerton Common. Wander into the woods and have a quick scrabble in the dust beneath your feet. Because, as Broads author William Dutt put it in 1902:

“At Bramerton the beds of sand, clay and shingle known as the Norwich Crag are exposed. This crag is rich in fossils, and visitors seldom have much difficulty in obtaining at least a quantity of shells.”

In other words, Bramerton might be almost 20 miles inland, but the earth it sits on, has all the attributes of the seaside. Now in the age of SSSIs, digging for shells is probably actively discouraged here. But given that the Crag goes down for 12 metres and has survived for at least 1.8 million years, I don't think you can do too much harm with a short sharp stick. I found the shell pictured above in less than five minutes.

So what does all this prove? Well, that all those years ago sea levels were much higher. So much so that Bramerton and Norwich would have been on the coast. Because the crag is exposed to the surface here, Bramerton is famous-ish in geological circles. The "Bramertonian Stage" is the name given to the part of the Pleistocene geological period when this mix of shell and sand was first laid down.

But hey, they all know that at the bar of the Woods End, don't they?

What's new on the Wherryman's Web

AT LONG last I've got this site talking to the photo-sharing site flickr.
Click on the black slide show section in the right hand column to see one photo per chapter - with the option of going full screen. Today was spent researching the circular walks at Bramerton and Rockland. It was a dreadful day for photography with a fierce wind sending thick white clouds scudding across the sky. So I've had to rely on this photo taken at the Woods End moorings early on a bright spring morning a month ago. Find out more about the circular walks at http://www.wherrymansway.net/circularwalks.html.

Tea’s up on the Yare

PHOTOGRAPHS of wherries in their heyday have an instant romance to them, but this one is particular good. For a start it instantly transports you back 100 years by its sheer location. Very few people go to Postwick Grove any more – largely because you have to skirt a dredging tip to get there. But a century ago (the stamp on the rear of the postcard is of Edward VII) Postwick was the fashionable place for a stroll or for picnics – witness the  onlooker(s) next to the gate. Then there’s relative absence of trees. In the intervening 100 years trees have self-seeded along the entire bank here – you simply can’t get to the riverside for long stretches.  That wouldn’t have been allowed to happen then, for the very simple reason that trees got in the way of good wind. I love the smoke from the stove in the cuddy too. Read Black-Sailed Traders and you’ll know how important a constant supply of good tea was to wherrymen. And finally look at the direction of the smoke – straight up. There wasn’t much wind around, so actually the tranquil setting belies a hard journey downriver for the two, or is it three, people on board.

* To explore Postwick Grove, start from Boundary Lane, Thorpe St Andrew. Follow the footpath once the road runs out and cross the railway line. Continue walking and you eventually emerge next to the River Yare. Walk far enough and you see the Woods End pub tantalisingly out of reach on the southern bank.

Wherryman's Way Ferries: RIP

YESTERDAY'S post on Reedham Ferry got me thinking about the other ferries that have fallen by the wayside. I make it 12 in total for the area covered by the Wherryman's Way. To my knowledge all but three were passenger ferries. Only Reedham, Surlingham Ferry House and Buckenham Ferry carried vehicles - they were called "Horse Ferries" in the old days. During research for the book I came across references up and down the Yare and the Wensum. This might not be a complete list, but it's a start.

Wensum (downstream of Foundry Bridge)
C Wright's Boatbuilders, near St Ann's Wharf, Norwich
Ferry Boat Inn, Norwich
Near Alan Road, Norwich

Yare
Whitlingham to Thorpe St Andrew
Woods End to Postwick
The Ferry House, Surlingham to Postwick (pictured)
Coldham Hall, Surlingham to Brundall
Buckenham Ferry (Carleton St Peter to Buckenham)
Langley to Cantley
Langley Round House to Cantley Sugar Factory
Upper Ferry, Yarmouth Southtown to South Quay
Lower Ferry, Yarmouth Gorleston to South Denes Road

Now only Reedham Ferry survives. It was already "The Last of the Norfolk Horse Ferries" when James Wentworth Day wrote a piece for Country Life magazine in September 1949. There were no engines then, everything had to be done by hand:

"Arthur Benns. although past his seventieth birthday, thinks nothing of cranking twenty or thirty tons of dead weight across the river, sometimes with the tide running strongly and an easterly wind off the marshes cutting like a razor."

A tough life, no doubt.

What next for the Loddon Swan?

“THERE’S A rule about the Premiership,” wrote one clever sports reporter a few weeks ago, “that as far as the media is concerned, one football club should always be in crisis.” I feel much the same about Wherryman’s Way pubs. Last year we feared for Coldham Hall after the bailiffs moved in. (It should re-open within weeks. See previous posts.) Then the Woods End at Bramerton was put up for sale – again more here. Now the future of The Swan at Loddon is in doubt after management company GRS Inns went into administration. Amazingly The Swan is one of four pubs which survive in Loddon/Chedgrave – but for how much longer? The White Horse does the restaurant/upmarket thing; the King’s Head looks after the footie lads, while The Angel does a good line in cosy chintz. And The Swan? Goodness knows I wouldn’t have the bottle or the business nous to run a boozer in these troubled economic times, but I can’t see who this pub is aiming at. Which is of course a crying shame. It started life as the grand coaching inn - some of the stable buildings still survive to the rear. And in the days when each town had its own court, the local magistrates met there too. But that’s all ancient history. These days it doesn’t feel so grand ..and this latest news means it doesn’t feel very well-loved either.