Jimmy Continued to Pour Pints Wylie Could. #3
- Stewart
- 13 minutes ago
- 3 min read
It's been a while since we last looked in on Jimmy Wylie and even longer since we first met him in the Star in Gorleston. Since then, if you've been following him on his journey, you'll have called in for a pint or two in the Red Lion in Upper Sheringham before heading for some more at the King's Head in Barford. Jimmy left the King's Head well before it finally closed its doors for the final time, for pretty much the same reason the that subject of this post did, and went to the Brickmakers Arms in Freethorpe.
Situated on Freethorpe Common...
...the furthest back to which I can trace the pub is 1851 when one James Rushmer was listed in that year's census as being a dealer and beer seller.
Whilst the pub wasn't named in the entry, with only two hostelries in the village at the time and with the other one, the Rampant Horse, getting mentioned, it wasn't too difficult to establish that this was the Brickmakers Arms.
James Rushmer was still there in 1854, when White's managed to spell his name incorrectly...
...before dying the following year but, somehow, he still managed to get in Craven's 1856 directory.
The turnover rate of landlords at the Brickmakers seems to have been pretty high. The census informs us that John and Matilda Brown were in residence in 1861...
...but they'd moved on by the time that the researchers for White's directory found Charles Harvey there in 1864.
By 1869, James Cory jr was in charge of pouring the pints...
...but he'd left by the time that the census enumerator called once more, a couple of years later. Jeremiah Chapman and family were there then, and whilst the pub wasn't named...
...Jeremiah's presence at the Brickmakers from 2nd January that year has been recorded elsewhere. Jeremiah provided stability to the pub, remaining there for over twenty years...
...and by the time that he left, late in 1891, the pub had entered the hands of Morgan's Brewery Company of Norwich.
Jeremiah's successor, John Neave, remained long enough to make it into the following year's edition of Kelly's directory...
...but left a few years later and the churning of landlords started once more. There were least another seventeen different folk taking on the pub's reins before 'our Jimmy' arrived on the scene in the early 1940s. He didn't stay long either – which is no real surprise as he was aged about sixty-nine by then – before he retired and returned to Great Yarmouth, to live his remaining days out in Excelsior Terrace, two doors away from his son.
Jimmy died in 1955 and the Brickmakers only outlived him by around seven years. In September 1961, Morgan's Brewery Company went into voluntary liquidation. Their pub estate was split between fellow Norwich brewers Bullard's and Steward & Patteson (S&P). The Brickmakers was taken over by the latter, and that may very well have signed its death warrant. S&P already owned the Rampant Horse, and they closed the Brickmakers in January 1962. Its final landlord was Frank Brister, who'd been there since 1953. He moved on to the Cantley Cock which, I'm pleased to report, is still operating today
The former Brickmakers Arms is now in residential use.
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.
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