The Lifeboat, Hunstanton

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Thuck Phat left this review about The Lifeboat

The Lifeboat is an ancient 16th Century smugglers inn beautifully situated in the picturesque village of Thornham and overlooking the salt marshes and sea.
The main front door takes you into the original part of the building, which has been much extended, where you are greeted by the reception desk, a large open fireplace, complete with roaring fire in the Winter and walls decked with old firearms and stuffed birds and animals. All very traditional and very welcoming. To the right is the bar with small stone floored drinking area and beyond this another large room often used for dining with a log burner. At the back is a large modern and characterless conservatory which seems to be used as an overflow for rowdy families eating in the Summer.
To the left of the entrance is a large and relatively new dining room and an old staircase leads up from the original area to the pubs rooms. There are also benches at the front of the building for outdoor drinking.
I've been visiting and staying at the Lifeboat for around 30 years and it's always been popular during the Summer but has been through a few incarnations. Originally, when privately owned, it was an excellently run pub with good food and beer, friendly personal service and fresh rooms. It was acquired by the Maypole group a few years ago since when, in my experience it went badly downhill with formulaic food, impersonal service, a lack of attention to cleanliness - we always had to unstick ourselves from the tables, tired rooms and indifferent beer.
It has just been acquired by Marco Pierre White and my most recent visit found the initial stages of changes being made. The outside was being painted, MPW Governor is on handpump, the tables are clean and there are lot of larger ladies rushing around shouting orders at each other over the customers heads to no apparent purpose.
Beers on were Abbot, GK IPA, Adnams Bitter and Woodforde Wherry in addition to the aforementioned Governor which was fine but at 3.8% nothing to get excited about. An uninspiring choice.
The Lifeboat is a lovely building in a delightful location with a good but outdated reputation. It's clearly undergoing a change and it's too early to tell how that will work out but for the sake of the building I hope that it's well.

On 1^st August 2011 - rating: 5
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