The Old Fishmongers Arms

It was the hot dry summer of 1976 when my family and I moved from Berkshire to Norfolk to live in the Old Fishmongers Arms, Needham.

David, (my late husband), had become tired of travelling up and down the M4 to his place of work; he had the romantic notion of growing tomatoes.  He had previously taken a few days off from his work as a freight consultant and he travelled the length and breadth of England in his search of finding us somewhere new to live.  It was early January when David arrived in Norfolk in that year and he found it wasn’t raining! 

He brought me and our three young children, Oliver 3, Julia 5 and Jane 7 to view a few houses; one of them was The Old Fishmongers Arms. On the way home to Berkshire I told David I didn’t like the house. ‘There’s not a house in England to suit you,’ he promptly replied - we had only seen three.  ‘Well’, I said, ‘if you like it so much then buy it.’ ......And he did!

We had been living in a new house in Mortimer, Berkshire and the contrast between a 16^th century thatched building in need of a lot of TLC and that of an easy to run modern home was marked.  The previous owners of The Old Fishmongers Arms took a while to move out and, as we needed to leave our current house, we camped in a farm at Mendham.  We were lucky to have a caravan as a temporary residence.

In was a strange time. The two oldest children started school in Harleston and we played Lego with the youngest one, practically all day for 3 weeks.  It was not like being on holiday, although all three children enjoyed feeding the lambs; but I longed for the day I could put the all children in the bath and into their own beds.  By the time we left our caravan I wouldn’t have minded if we were moving into a ‘one up’ and ‘one down’, so long as it had running water!

On the day of the move, David kept going to Needham to check that the present owners were indeed leaving.  By dusk that day, we were able to move in and as our furniture hadn’t arrived we sat on garden chairs in the kitchen.  The kitchen had one bright orange wall and a pipe that ran across a large beam on the ceiling and down to the hot and cold taps over the sink.  The radiator fell off the wall when I leaned on it, a cupboard door fell off when opened and a mouse ran across the floor but none of this mattered; we were to start our new adventure. My mother came to stay and help out but she failed to understand why the floors sloped so much especially on the upstairs landing and bedroom.  The house was very draughty and a bit scary. My mother had to sleep in Jane’s bedroom as Jane had been given the attic room and she was frightened of being alone.

Did we grow tomatoes?  No, not in that heat and drought but my husband did begin to build up another airfreight business, working from home. Fortunately, it still survives today.  We were kept busy; there was always a lot to do and to discover in the house.  Houses like this always give one something back and there were inglenook fireplaces and mullioned windows to uncover, floors and windows to strip; plus an old stable to renovate and turn into a garden room.  We did not find any treasures or blocked up baby shoes but only a host of old clay pipes. It was and still is, even after 38 years of being here, a tremendous challenge but a very exciting one too.

Sue Simmonds

(Part 2 of Sue’s article will appear in the next edition of the Needham Link)