The Globe Hotel (JD Wetherspoon), King's Lynn

Probably the most Jeckyl & Hyde Wetherspoons I have experienced. The initial signs were not good. We were actually staying in the hotel and I popped down for a quick pint at about 7pm, all calm and peaceful. We left to meet some friends at the Lattice House and then made our way to the Crown & Mitre at 8.30pm. There were already police vans outside the Globe and one person spreadeagled on the floor with a copper's foot firmly entrenched on his back. Welcome to Saturday night in Kings Lynn. At gone midnight we returned but with a healthy throng of police cars eyeballing the place I had no desire to set foot in the bar, even for a desperate last pint amongst the ear shattering music. Luckily we were staying in a “quiet” room which did manage to reduce the noise to a mild earthquake. I half expected to wake up Sunday morning to find the windows boarded up but Sunday breakfast was taken amid a serenity that made the previous evening seem quite surreal. We did a round of the town before a lunch time meet up back at the Globe and the place was now packed with families out to make the most of the Sunday roast (they don't have the usual Sunday club dinners here but have their own carvery which judging by the queues inside is very popular). As for the pub itself, it is huge and seems to go on forever but the décor etc is pretty formulaic throughout. There are a few high backed pews for a bit of intimacy but generally it is all quite open and impersonal. There were 2 guest beers over the weekend of our stay, neither of them anything to write home about (Nethergate Holy Smoke and Bath Spa). The blandness of the interior is in contrast to the massive but well maintained beer garden that stretches down to the Great Ouse where the waders and gulls dip for food as the tide recedes. From the riverside terrace, it is actually quicker to hop over the wall and get a pint in the Crown & Mitre than it is to do a round trip to the Globe's bar. The bottom line is that if it is a sunny day, the Globe is worth a visit to enjoy the views from the garden. If it is the evening, especially the weekend, the place is not even worthy of a peep through the window. On the non pub side of things for those who are planning to stay at the Globe, we did found its facilities clean and tidy and as good as any other budget hotel. Service and reception was very good and if a rowdy Saturday night is what you are after, you get a card that lets you into the bar from the hotel area so you will avoid the queues and bouncers!

Official page of The Globe Hotel - www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk

Official page of The Globe Hotel - www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk

Lloyds Bar when I was last there. Some very good ales including Wherry.