King’s Lynn – Lattice House
Another day and Julian and I were off on another of our study tours. This pub has its name back again, the former Lattice House was changed to Bishops of Chapel Street but it has gone back to what it was previously called and it has recently reopened after being closed for a few months. For many years it was operated by JD Wetherspoon and the historic nature of the building is what made this one of my favourite pubs in their chain, but it was flogged off in early 2016 as they likely thought their nearby Globe Hotel pub was sufficient for their needs. I’ve written about this venue before, as it went through a period as a restaurant when people in their early 20s were entirely banned and unsurprisingly that little initiative didn’t work and it closed after just a few months. Even younger people can enjoy decent food.
As the sign notes, the pub was originally built in the late fifteenth century as a row of shops, but became an inn in the early eighteenth century. It ceased being a pub in 1919 when the licence wasn’t renewed, but was reopened in 1982 when CAMRA themselves took it over. It then became a JD Wetherspoon venue in July 2000 and they kept it until 2016.
The Lynn News reported in May 2023 that a new owner had taken over, with an attempt to give the venue some stability after its recent closure.
We both ordered half of the Jigfoot from Moon Gazer (I like Moon Gazer) and the team member mentioned that he’d probably only have enough for one of us as it was near the end of the barrel. I quickly switched to the Pintail from the same brewery and Julian followed, an end of the barrel beer isn’t very appealing and we thought we’d let another customer take that chance. The Pintail was well kept, at the appropriate temperature and tasted as expected.
The interior of this pub is outstanding and there’s an upstairs bar and gallery area which looks down on the main hall.
There are a number of smaller rooms, although this area did lack some atmosphere. This is one of the evident challenges of this building, it’s large and something of an odd shape so it’s hard to see what’s going on throughout the various rooms.
The bar itself covers three different rooms and there’s no shortage of character in the pub as a whole.
The welcome was friendly and immediate, with the surroundings feeling comfortable and it’s hard not to be taken in by the beauty of the building itself. The team members also offered a polite farewell when we left the pub, so the service was always warm and helpful. The pub has a challenge that it’s near a Wetherspoons and two Craft Union pubs which all have low prices, but the beers here were reasonably priced. It wasn’t evident to me whether food was being sold as there were no menus on tables, although an external sign notes that cakes are available.
It’s marvellous that this pub is open again and it was the first one that I wanted to visit as part of our expedition to the town for research purposes. I’m sure it’ll evolve over the next few months, but I rather enjoyed visiting here again and it’s hard to remember now when it was operated by Wetherspoons although there are some clues around such as the tiling and other internal decoration which remains.
