Blackfriars Tavern | Norfolk NIPS
Blackfriars Tavern is Back! One of Great Yarmouth’s classic pubs The statistics on pub closures over recent years have made depressing reading, with trade magazine The Morning Advertiser, reporting over 2,500 closures in 2020. Whilst over double the previous year’s figures, caused largely by the pandemic, this worrying trend is continuing within the industry. Given this fact, we were more than a little surprised to hear that the Blackfriars Tavern, which had been closed since 2015, was being re-opened AND selling real ale. So we decided to find out their story...
The
pub was purchased on 30 April 2020 by Mr Smith, who had identified the pub as being a very interesting building years earlier, on a family day trip to Yarmouth. When it was put up for sale, he proceeded with the purchase despite the restrictions that had just been imposed on the trade. These restrictions, in fact, proved to have both positive and negative consequences; as a construction project it was allowed to continue and skills normally in short supply were available, but sourcing materials required contacts and ingenuity. 34 | Autumn 2021
The pub was first granted a premises licence in 1865 and the first landlord was a Henry F Veal, who was also a fish-merchant in the town. Originally one section of the external walls was fabricated from wood and there is still a cast iron drainpipe on the building with a date of 1898 cast in the metal. The pub lies in a conservation area, neighbouring part of the old town walls and so the renovations have had to be carried out sympathetically, but it is now looking absolutely fantastic inside and out.
