The Crown Lodge in Mundford matches properly into the previous boozer class. There is a darts board, wooden burner, creaking beams, detached wine, a ditzy barmaid and a show of whiskies that just about accounts for your entire contents of the comfortable bar on the proper as you stroll in.
Relationship again to 1652, the constructing was as soon as the magistrates’ courtroom.
Right this moment, it is a take-it-as-you-find-it kind of place, a polar reverse to House Counties chi-chi.
Sitting fortunately on its little throne: The Crown isn’t a spectacular place to sleep – however it does the job
On arrival, we hedge our bets and ask to see a room earlier than signing up for B&B. Virtually ten minutes later we’re nonetheless ready for somebody to reach with keys.
Lastly, Miss Ditzo, who does not do a lot in the way in which of small discuss, exhibits us two rooms in an adjoining constructing. We decide to the smaller one as a result of it has a brand new lavatory and overlooks the village inexperienced, with its paper store, hairdresser’s and chapel.
Mundford?
It is on the sting of Thetford Forest in Norfolk, down the highway from the Cromwell Tank memorial to the seventh Armoured Division (the Desert Rats) based mostly right here in World Battle II.
There’s numerous brown occurring in our room and the pillows are like slabs of lard, however it’s spotlessly clear. For ambiance, we return to the pub and order prawn cocktails and steak and kidney pie.
Amount is beneficiant, high quality questionable and never many individuals are in.
But it surely’s a Monday evening, and we’re happy to be right here – as a result of that is the kind of place a property firm would like to gobble up and exchange with half a dozen ‘luxurious flats’ with the assistance of a ghastly advertising slogan equivalent to ‘stay the long run’.
We’re happy to be tasting a little bit of the previous, frankly.
Which is why I order fried bread with my eggs within the morning. The chef (a former soldier) doubles up because the waiter and needs to know if the eggs are precisely proper. They’re.
The Crown isn’t precisely a vacation spot lodge, however greater than satisfactory for those who’re passing by means of.
