133a High Street
Current
BlueAnchor
133a
High Street
Lowestoft
NR32 1HP
United Kingdom
Inspired by British and European influences & specialising in fish & seafood; MarkG uses local, rustic, seasonal and sustainable British ingredients, with menus created on a daily basis offering the freshest market dishes.
Markg welcomes you to lunch and dinner with Italian coffee, fine wine and local beer’s all served in a modern, relaxed atmosphere.
History
Before it was The Old Blue Anchor Public House you can see from the 2nd picture from the 1880's it was just called the Blue Anchor. You can see from this picture No124-125-126 which were knocked down to make way for the new town hall which never got built because of the cost but the council decided this after they knocked them down. Sadly the Blue Anchor as it is in this picture was knocked down in 1885 to allow for road widening, you will also note the frontage of the buildings on the left of the picture have also changed. But it is still a fabulous picture which captures a moment in time which will never be repeated.
CREDIT: Lowestoft High Street, The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick Maker by Crispin Hook 2016 Get the book
Architecture
This 1870 Photo shows original Blue Anchor. No 134 to 140 you can see a mixture of different types of architecture. One of the properties... in amongst the shops, is still a private house. It's not a shop, it hasn't been adapted. And the other fascinating thing about it, and one of the reasons I picked this picture, is the shopfronts are being protected from the strong sunlight by awnings, now these awnings were actually large large roller blinds that were rolled up and stored in the fascia above the shop window
Then they could be pulled forward when the sun was strong. You can see here, this is... this picture I would imagine is taken quite early in the morning on a very sunny day, east is to our left so the sun is still basically in the east and quite low.
And they've got to look in your shop window, so at the end of each day they would wind the awning in and out, wouldn't they? So we've got one, two, three, here you can see these are all protecting their goods from the strong sunlight. I'm not sure if this gentleman in this shop is trying to... put his up, or if he's got a problem. CREDIT: Ivan Bunn from transcript - Poetry People - High Street Histories
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Comments
My great-grandfather was…
My great-grandfather was once the manager of the Old Blue Anchor, so it has a warm place in my heart. Several years ago, I was doing ancestry research and discovered a census from 1939 that listed my great-grandfather, Victor Henry Norman, then 70 years of age, as the manager of a “licensed premises” at 133A High Street in Lowestoft. A travel log from a great-aunt said “It was a quaint, old-fashioned, lovely inn.” That was all the information I could find.
In August of 2019, I made an ancestry pilgrimage visiting the towns where my mother’s family had lived for generations in East Anglia, predominantly Great Yarmouth and Norwich, and I took a bus from Great Yarmouth to Lowestoft to see if I could locate 133A High Street. From the street where the bus stopped, someone pointed me in the direction of High Street. I wasn’t sure about the building numbers, so I walked into the pub to ask the barkeep, Lisa, the address of the building. When she told me it was 133A, I was thrilled to have found it. Finally, I had a name for the pub my great-grandfather had managed: The Old Blue Anchor. I told Lisa the story of my family connection, and she told me about ghostly sightings of an old man. I celebrated my discovery with a pint and then left Lowestoft on my way to Loddon.
When I returned to the states I typed “The Old Blue Anchor” in my search engine and was surprised to learn that there was an oil painting of the pub for sale in a gallery in Lowestoft. The paining was the work of a local artist Richard Dack. That painting now hangs in my home in Florida. I can send a photo of the painting, if you like.
A couple of years after visiting Lowestoft, I came across some old Christmas cards that had been sent from my great-grandparents to my grandparents who were living in America. The cards clearly show where the family was living, possibly in rooms above the pub?
You can see why it pleases me so that the pub has found new life and continues to serve as a gathering place for fine food, beverage, and fellowship.
Cheers,
Don Schlosser
Port St Lucie, Florida, USA
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