Burying My Head in the Sand.
- Stewart
- 14 hours ago
- 5 min read
On Sunday 16th July 2000, twenty-six years ago to the day as I start to tap this post out, I was riding in my first ever national championship event – the one hundred mile time trial. The course was basically three laps of a thirty-threeish mile circuit in north Norfolk, starting around Sculthorpe, near Fakenham. The course headed along the A143 to Hillington with a left turn onto the B1153, through Grimston to Gayton where another left onto B1145 took the riders through Rougham to the A1065. From there it was north-east through Weasenham and South Raynham and back to the A143, where another turn left turn completed the circuit. It was then simply a case of completing it twice more!
Twenty-six years ago the technology was pretty simple. No specialised time trial frame, no aero wheels, no skinsuit, no pointy hat...
...but I still managed to haul myself around the course to a new personal best. This post on the lost Bull Inn in Fakenham has a bit more about the event and in it I hinted that a post on the Ostrich Inn in Weasenham All Saints might appear in the future. Well, the future is now here and here is that post. Also, here is a photograph of the pub taken, just a year before my triple passing of it, by John Law.
The earliest reference to the Ostrich that I've found is in an advert in the Norfolk Chronicle of 6th April 1839.
The late John Brunton is likely to have been running the pub and smithying at the same time. Two years later the census records an Ellen Brunton living at the Ostrich with her daughters. Ellen's husband was William who died in 1839. Perhaps he was William John, or maybe John William? I really don't know, but it's highly likely that he was some relation or other.
Ellen herself died in 1849 and two years later her son Robert and family are at the Ostrich. Robert is also carrying out the work of a smith.
According to Harrod's directory, he was still there in 1877...
...but had relinquished the Brunton family's hold on the Ostrich by the time of the 1881 census.
Smith by both name and profession, William was still in residence in 1883 according to White's directory...
...but they must've been a bit behind the times, for the Downham Market Gazette reported, on 6th May 1882, the transfer of the licence from William to a John Grimes.
We can see that, by this time, the pub was one of Norwich brewer Steward & Patteson's establishments. It was leased to them by the Earl of Leicester, head of the Coke family of Holkham Hall.
John Grimes wasn't there for long as, on 24th October 1884, the Thetford and Watton Times is reporting yet another licence transfer. The Ostrich's new licensee is another blacksmith – James Ewer.
James Ewer was still pouring pints in the Ostrich on census night 1891...
...but, when he died a few months later, son William (actually James William) took over its running...
...and was still there when Kelly's called again in 1912, listing him with a number of similarly named hostelries.
The reason for quite so many Ostrich Inns in north Norfolk is down to the fact that as well as owning most of Weasenham, the Cokes owned a lot of other bits of the area and the family's coat of arms includes, surprise, surprise, an ostrich .
Whilst the Ewers were in residence the Ordnance Survey mapped the village, marking the pub...
...which must've looked something like this at the time.
By 1915, it seems that James/William was in financial difficulties. The Financial News, on 18th September, included his name in a list of Receiving Orders published in the previous evening's London Gazette...
...and he was no longer in Weasenham.
He was probably replaced by John Artis, who Kelly recorded as being there in 1916...
...up until at least 1933.
The Norfolk Pubs site has Richard Coke of Weasenham Hall as the licensee from 1934. If he was, then I doubt that he'd have been running the place. Indeed, the 1939 Register lists Aubrey Wade-Palmer, who'd earlier been at the Scole Inn near Diss, as a hotel manager at the Ostrich Inn.
After the war, the Coke family leased the pub to Tolly Cobbold for twenty-five years but on the day that I pedalled past the Ostrich was in the care of Jim and Diane Ponder.
They'd bought it from the Coke family sometime around 1980 and ran it until they retired. The pub closed in 2001. When Diane died Jim sold it to a developer and ithe building was left for years to decay...
...and decay...
...before eventually being converted into a residential property.
In my previous post we said goodbye to the Sportsman in Ormesby St. Michael and in reality, I think I've said goodbye to the sportsman in me. Too old for rugby, too old for cricket and even too old for competitive cycling. In an attempt to regain my not so youthful youth I rode my old time trial bike a couple of days ago. How on earth did I maintain that position for twenty minutes, let alone any longer? I think my dream of a sub-four hour hundred miler is now just that, a dream, and I should simply admit that the years have beaten me. However, like the ostrich in the old idiom, I'll probably keep burying my head in the sand and delay the announcement of my retirement a little longer.
The image of the 2000 100 mile championship is copyright of Kimroy Photography. Thanks to Brian Jones for its use. Thanks also to John Law for his picture of the Ostrich in 1999.
Mark Hobbs' image is copyright and reused under this licence. The Ordnance Survey map extract is copyright and has been reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland under the terms of this CC BY licence.
The newspaper images are courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk).
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