Lollards Pit, Norwich

Close to the river on Riverside, a dun coloured old looking Greene King pub with a bit of Brewers Tudor on the exterior, inside the look continues with old beams, some possibly original and in situ. Not sure of the original layout but now there’s a front area, a seating area beyond and a room off to the left with a pool table, there’s a big back garden too. The counter is an L with a T-bar, a Cruzcampo solo and six pulls, four of which were in use. A mediocre Wherry, Panther Beast of the East, an East Yorkshire interloper from Great Newsome and an own badged 3.6%, too strong for Greene King IPA nowadays so I don’t know its origin. There’s a fair number of ciders mostly from Lilley’s and baps. Industrial carpet, the odd print and a couple of cabinets of bottles and jars of interest form the decor. A couple of machines lurk at the back and to the right on entering is a laser display screen of the beers and ciders available. A few down market sweary punters in on my visit.

On the other side of Bishop Bridge to the Red Lion, the Lollards Pit was one of the first pubs in Norwich to be built outside the city walls, and was built on the site of a place of execution for heretics known as Lollards Pit, hence the current name. Internally it’s largely one room around the long L shaped bar, but there is a smaller area beyond housing a pool table and then a nice outside secluded courtyard garden with plenty of covered seating areas accessed from this games room. The decor is pleasant enough with exposed brick to the bar front and exposed beams on both ceil and walls. I had chosen to duck the Red Lion to take a look at this one and fortunately it did not disappoint for me when approaching the bar, in fact almost the opposite. All six ale pumps were in use and alongside a token interloper from Yorkshire ( Rudgate Battleaxe Bitter) they were all from Norfolk breweries. These were Woodforde Wherry, Lollards Mumbler IPA ( brewed for the pub by the North Norfolk Brewery), Humpty Dumpty Brewery Little Sharpie, Norfolk Brewhouse Skidaddler Milk Stout and Panther Brewery Spring Pale Ale. Between us we tried the Humpty Dumpty, Norfolk Brewhouse and the Panther ales and they were all in fine condition.

Catches the eye with its ‘little and large’ pitched roofing. Inside is a nice 90s throwback refurb. Quite pleasant actually with sodium lights, mid-brown undressed brick walls and some inset cupboards. All came crashing down at the bar though; just the two ales, a pretty naff Deuchars (NBSS 2) and another so dull I forgot to record it, served up by perfunctory staff. There were also some ciders. Pretty empty on late Saturday evening and perhaps it wasn’t hard to see why. Dumped my beer early and headed-off. Not quite the pits, but certainly not a GBG pub (but in it is…). Visited early August.