A historic pub tour leaves many unanswered questions

You might think that the role of a tour leader is to answer questions. If so, I failed on my recent historic pub tour around the east side of Lynn’s London Road.Sure, I identified a couple of brewery sites there. Behind the Conservative Club are the old brewery buildings, the last remnants of a brewery that once stood there, at 13 London Road.These are residential buildings now and a look at old maps suggest that has always been the case, but what of the brewery?

It looks like the building to the right of the arch by the side of the club once had an industrial use, so was that the C & U Goddard’s brewery?What about John Jex Rolfe? He purchased a brewery from Thomas Hammond in 1871. Was this the same one? Shortly afterwards he constructed a new brewhouse on the site of Old Brewery Court, between Guanock Terrace and London Road which was sold in 1906, but remained there until it was demolished in the 70s.

One of the pubs that Rolfe acquired was the Queen’s Arms, now the Islamic study centre on London Road, The first reference to this is from 1838, ‘when a numerous party of the Auxiliary Conservatives dined here’.This is only four years after Robert Peel’s Tamworth declaration which could saw the genesis of the Conservative Party, so maybe this meeting is the beginning of the local Conservative party in Lynn. Is it coincidence that the Conservative Club is next door? In 1934, the Queen’s Arms was taken over by Elgood’s and the first landlord was one of the family. Walter Stewart Elgood was born in Peterborough on November 18,1902.He was educated at Uppingham School followed by Clare College, Cambridge where he gained a tripos degree in sciences. He was a keen collector of butterflies and his collection, which consists of thousands of specimens and around 200 species, is now in Wisbech museum. He also collected stamps and coins, was a keen amateur dramatist, kept a large number of animals and was an enthusiastic gardener. He was in the Home Guard, the auxiliary fire service, became the High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and was made a Commander of the Order of St John.Due to the family’s support of the organisation, they bought their HQ in Wisbech. Was he the most overqualified pub landlord ever in Lynn? Did he have a role in establishing the HQ of Lynn St John’s next door to the Queen’s Arms?The questions kept coming. We wandered up London Road to Jubilee Gardens, dated 1899 on the stone pillar at the end, the date when the road was widened to allow two-way traffic. This was the site of the Crown Inn which I thought was demolished at the time but was being offered ‘to let’ by the council in 1903. Where exactly did the pub stand? These and other questions occupied our minds as we made our way to the Live and Let Live where landlady Rozi had provided a buffet for the tour.Our collection for the walk, food and donations for surplus rhubarb came to about £225 for which Jane, the representative of the Heart2 Heart charity was extremely grateful. It will go towards providing and servicing defibrillators for the local community.Thanks are due to the Rozi and her staff for their hospitality, local CAMRA chair Andrea for helping to organise the event and the participants who contributed so generously. We may not have known all the answers but with pint in hand at the end, it was a very enjoyable event. No question.bar.man@btinternet.com