It seems like it's been a while since my last post, but I've been a bit busy. My time has been occupied with a trip to find some snow in Sweden, a host of examinations of various parts of my anatomy, by suitably qualified practitioners I ought to add, as well as doing some training. Quite a bit of training.
June's diagnosis has sown the seed that, should things develop in an unwanted direction, this could be the last season for a while, or maybe for ever, in which competing – with the days of district championship medals literally being history I use the term in its loosest form – might be a possibility. So I've been doing some pedalling. Lots of pedalling. Both indoor pedalling and outdoor pedalling. Up to twelve hours a week of pedalling. That, along with trying to rebuild a bike to race on as well as watching all the Six Nations rugby has eaten into the hours available for typing out this twaddle, but at last the latest twaddle is here.
In the previous post in these random ramblings we met William James Wylie, known as Jimmy, whilst he was landlord at the Star at 199 High Street in Gorleston. Here we'll follow him to the Red Lion in Upper Sheringham, which is where he moved to when the Star closed, for it too is now a bygone boozer.
We saw in that last post that the Star closed in 1932 when its licence expired at the end of December and that Jimmy was pulling pints once more by 9th January the following year in the Red Lion in Upper Sheringham. He was listed in that year's Kelly's directory where the pub is simply named as the Lion, for this leonine watering hole seems to veer from being red to colourless and back again with remarkable regularity.
Jimmy arrived at the pub in 1933, but the Red Lion dates from about a century before that. Originally one of three cottages constructed of flint cobbles and owned by the Upcher family of Sheringham Hall, one John Doughty was serving there as early as 1836 and the Lion was red when it was listed in White's directory of 1845.
John died in 1850 and the running of the pub was taken on by his widow, Sarah, assisted by granddaughter Mary.
That's the early story of Jimmy's new pub, but what about its end? The Red Lion closed in 2006 and planning permission to turn it into three cottages was refused the following year. It stood empty until 2013 when permission to renovate the upstairs flat and to create another residential space downstairs was applied for.
I presume some sort of permission was obtained, for the former Red Lion certainly appears to be in residential use now...
...and not open for the refreshment of passing cyclists...
...unlike when I passed on one of my first ever training rides.
So, that's the fate of the Red Lion, but what about Jimmy? Well, Jimmy was only there for a couple of years or so before seemingly moving on to another Morgan's pub – the King's Head in Barford. Yes, that's a bygone boozer too, so you can probably guess what might be coming shortly.
Chris's image of the Red Lion is copyright and is reused under this licence.
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