North Walsham Pub Day – Orchard Gardens

Situated just a few minutes walk away from the town centre is this former Victorian townhouse, now the Orchard Gardens, which was the fifth pub visit on our day trip to North Walsham. It’s been a pub since the late nineteenth century and was a Watney Mann pub until Punch Taverns briefly took it over and nearly ruined it before it became free trade.

I admit that I had to Google this as I hadn’t heard of Walter Pardon, but my music knowledge is mostly limited to the Wurzels so that’s not entirely surprising.

For anyone interested, here’s one of his folk songs.

The pub was larger than I had realised and it had a cosy ambience to it, it seemed a generally comfortable environment.

There were three ales available, Greene King’s Abbot, Lacon’s Encore and Reedlighter from Woodfordes Brewery.

I’m not a cyclist so I don’t mind where bikes are shoved, but Julian is more into getting them back into use.

We sat, for the second time in a day, by the dart board and some festive tree arrangement in the corner.

This wasn’t under-poured, I had consumed a little before remembering to take the photo. I went for the Reedlighter from Woodfordes and it was well-kept and at the appropriate temperature but as a beer it was a little thin for me.

An Adnams Ale poster of their brewery set-up from nearly fifty years ago.

I was very tempted by this pizza arrangement, which I think is a pop-up set-up from a different vendor, but I was still more than full from my earlier pie at the King’s Arms. For what it’s worth, which I admit is very little, if I had been settled in for the evening I’m confident that I would have gone for the ‘Nduja pizza.

I liked this pub, it felt like a comfortable family venue which has numerous events going on which include live music. The opening hours aren’t as transparent as they could be, the opening times vary on different sites and the closing time is ‘late’ which I find an entirely unhelpful proposition for customers. But anyway, that slight complaint aside, I liked the set-up here with numerous different seating areas and also a pool table in a separate part of the venue. The service was polite and personable, the atmosphere was inviting and I liked their food offer so I’d suggest that combination is a win for the local community.