Wymondham – White Hart

The fourth pub we visited in our day trip to Wymondham was the White Hart, which I’ve visited before during the partial lockdown. Although the frontage is eighteenth century, this former coaching inn dates from the early seventeenth century and the set-up internally shows some of the original elements, there are photos in my previous post. For reasons that entirely pass me by, someone thought that a better name for the venue would be the Heart of Wymondham, but fortunately wiser heads have prevailed and the historic name has returned.

The pub was used as a temporary Post Office between 2020 and 2023, with a new set-up now in operation at Jarrolds.

The main bar area, all very clean and organised.

There were sixteen real ales available and after I expressed surprise about this I was told by the helpful staff member that there’s a beer festival taking place this weekend. The selection was excellent with a range of mostly local beers, I was suitably surprised and delighted. It appears that even outside of these beer festivals that there is a decent selection of real ales, with the environment being welcoming and inviting.

I went for the Strangers No More which is a collaboration between Grain Brewery and Braxatorium Parcensis. This very agreeable and well-kept brown beer had a depth of flavour and is one of the four beers brewed as part of the Norwich City of Ale.

The pub’s former Masonic room which dates to the eighteenth century. I waited for what I think was the pub dog to get off the seating before I took the photo, a situation I’m never sure is ideal from a customer perspective but there we go. It’s a delight to have a drink in such a grand room, it adds character to the proceedings.

The pub does offer food, although the service times for this are a little confused as the pub’s web-site has two entirely different service times on the same page. From what I can work out, they serve meals at lunch-time and in the evenings, with the pub no longer offering all-day dining. The food is well reviewed and they have classic pub meals alongside separate menus for burgers and pizzas.

The beer selection here was the best that we found in the day day because of the festival that is taking place this weekend, but Whatpub suggests that there are usually eight real ales and so it’s likely this always has the widest range of beer options in Wymondham. Everything seemed clean and organised, this was a well managed pub and I hope their beer festival goes well and that they have plenty more in the future.