Tag: Clifton House Tower

Beer Mats, Buttons and a few Other Bits

An analysis of my newly acquired collection of beer mats (complete with photos), a unique LNER display and some other stuff.

INTRODUCTION

This post features some stuff I have bought at auctions and some stuff I have been given, and features some links at the end.

BEER MATS

I mentioned in my post about James and Sons’ November auction that I had purchased a box of beer mats. Well I have just finished sorting through them and categorizing them, taking photos along the way.

MACALLAN

There are seven mats that relate to Macallan Scotch Whisky. Macallan are sposnors of one of the world’s most prestigious bridge tournaments as well as purveyors of whisky.

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HEINEKEN AND ICE HOCKEY

I have 12 Heineken mats, one circular and 11 athletics track shaped. These latter 11 feature Ice Hockey Heroes – I have a run of numbers 2 through 9 of the original series of 10 and duplicates of numbers 7, 8 and 9.

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RANDOM FOREIGN

Five mats referrg to foreign drinks.

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COCA COLA AND COMPETITIONS

I have three mats advertsiign coca cola, two of which are duplicates, a schweppes mat and mat advertising a Holsten Pils competition.

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The two central mats are duplicates – I have shown different sides of each.

GENERAL SCOTCHES

Four mats advertising scotch whiskies other than Macallan.

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PRODUCE OF THE APPLE

Five mats where the focus is on drinks created from apples:

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THE IRISH CONTINGENT

I have nine mats featuring products of the Emerald Isle.

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The two big Guinness mats are duplicates, as are the three Murphy’s mats.

UNCATEGORIZED

Four mats that I could not think of a category for.

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BEER MATS GENERAL

We now come to the best bits of the collection. Starting with nine mats featuring a range of beers from around the country.

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The Webster’s mats at the top are duplicates save that they have different heroes on the back, as you will see later…

BEER MATS – EAST ANGLIA

There are ten beer mats in this group, all with a connection to East Anglia.

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You have now seen every beer mat in the collection, but I was not quite finished yet…

THOMAS’ TOP THREE

This is an image of my three favourite beer mats.

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THE RAILWAY CONNECTION

Some mats that are specifically railway oriented.

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The Samuel Whitbread connection is a little tenuous, and I took the opportunity to show the Amy Johnson profile.

THE BUTTONS

One of my colleagues recently gave me some LNER buttons (LNER stood for London and North Eastern Railway), and had previously given me an LNER badge. I also had some other LNBER buttons and an LNER themed postcard from previous purchases, and assembled this into an LNER display.

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The three buttons that set me thinking about the display – without using the flash
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the same buttons with flash
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close up of the locomotive button
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Close up of an LNER button
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Buttons, the badge and the postcard mounted ready for display.
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The top of the display.
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The bottom fo the display
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The badge.

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The display (it is housed in a plastic wallet).

LINKS

I start with some interesting pieces about the byelection that has surely spelt the end of Zac Goldsmith’s political career:

  1. David Hencke, who usually blogs on legal matters offers his take here.
  2. The Skwawkbox blog offer this view.
  3. Mike Sivier of Vox Political has this to say.

My final link is to a petition which can be accessed by clicking the screenshot below.

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A TWITTER FIND

If you are interested in trees then the following, tweeted by a certain James Rees, will certainly appeal:

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A COUPLE OF KING’S LYNN PICS TO FINISH

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A gull using the flagpole at the top of Clifton House tower as a perch.

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Heritage Open Day: Post Lunch

The conclusion of my series about Heritage Open Day.

INTRODUCTION

This post completes my account of this year’s Heritage Open Day in King’s Lynn.

A HOUSE, A CLUB AND A FERRY

On way out for my afternoon’s explorations I poked my head round the door of the Rathskellar, but decided not to go in. Queues and crowds notwithstanding I decided that my first port of call of the afternoon would be…

CLIFTON HOUSE

This house is the residence of the current head of English Heritage, and featured rooms open to the public on five different levels, and viewing area on yet a sixth (basement, ground floor, the four intermediate floors of the tower and the roof of the tower). The first part of the building that was opened up featured the cellar, the kitchen and a couple of rooms which could be viewed but not entered. I started by going down to the…

CELLAR

When the house was first built the cellar had been accessible direct from the river (which is now about 50 yards west of the house), and a system of ropes and pulleys was used to offload cargo…

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The first three pictures were taken en route to the cellar.

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Note the vaulted ceiling of the cellar.
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Three iron rings through which thick ropes could run enabled cargo to winched from boats into the cellar. I am not certain if all three are visible in this picture, but I tried to show them all.

After the cellar, it was time for the rest of that part of the building, and on towards the tower by way of…

THE KITCHEN

There were some very interesting things to be seen even though this had the feeling of being merely on the way to somewhere else, because of course what everyone was really interested in seeing was the tower.

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These canons were in a reception area just outside the kitchen.
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The remaining four photographs were all taken in the kitchen.

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Apart from one last major queue because of limitations on the number of people being allowed in there at any one time (for obvious safety reasons) it was now time to venture the…

TOWER

There were interesting things to see on each level of the tower…

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These antique maps and the model of the house were on the first floor of the tower.

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One floor up was a room set up for a Jacobean supper.

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This room was a further floor up

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The ‘Prospect Room’ is one floor below the roof.

The views from the roof were amazing. Conscious of the number of other people who were waiting to savour the views I restricted myself to a few minutes taking the view from all angles, before heading back down.

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Looking towards The Wash
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The Lower Purfleet from above

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The view focussing between St Nicholas Chapel and the docks.

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My humble abode viewed from the top of the Clifton House Tower.

Leaving Clifton House I headed for Ferry Lane, where I paid a call at the premises of

THE OUSE AMATEUR SAILING CLUB

This establishment, which has about 5o sailing members and somewhere around 500 ‘social’ members had opened its Ferry Bar to the public for the day. I consumed a pint of a splendid beer brewed in Lowestoft (just into Suffolk, but possibly close enough to count as local, especially as the other featured brewery is based in Southwold, a little further away). Having purchased my drink I took some photos inside…

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I then went outside on to the balcony overlooking the Great Ouse, and took some photographs from this great vantage point…

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It was at this point that my attention was caught by something downriver, which turned out to be…

THE ARRIVAL OF A FISHING BOAT

Given the role that fishing, and indeed the sea as a whole has played in the history of our town this was a particular splendid sight…

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The first glimpse.

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Turning into the docks and therefore presenting a side-on view.

After finishing my pint I headed for the

FERRY

I finished my day by taking the special ‘Heritage Open Day’ trip on the ferry, which involves a small amount of travel along the river as well as across it. This was my first trip on the new ferries, which are equipped with caterpillar tracks for crossing the exposed mud at low tide. The King’s Lynn Ferry has been in operation for over 800 years.

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The other historic bus (my second post in the series featured the one put on by Towler’s), this one a routemaster.

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