Haunt Of My Childhood

A Memory of Surlingham.

Coldham Hall was a pub much loved by my family on the riverside in Surlingham, about a half mile downstream from Brundall. The landlord at the time the picture was taken was Billy Breach, who also ran a foot ferry across the water from the tiny dock in the left foreground to a small jetty (with summoning bell) immediately opposite on the Brundall side. As I recall from my earliest memories, around 1940, the fare was a penny in those days but the service has, unsurprisingly, been long discontinued. It's quite likely that the ferry boat is the one just visible in the photograph - certainly, it was just a large, grey dinghy that would carry half a dozen people at a pinch.
The building to the right of the picture was a skittle alley (before my time) then became a general store for a small boat building business run by Harry Last, using a couple of larger wet boatsheds behind the buildings in the picture. Harry married Billy's daughter Mary and later took over the pub when Billy died. They had a daughter "Young" Mary who continued to live in a bungalow a short way upriver from the pub, with Harry in the next-door bungalow after he retired (and next door, also, to a similar bungalow into which my father moved us for a few months in 1940 to get us away from the perceived dangers of Norwich).
After the war my father kept his motor cruiser moored along the staithe at Coldham Hall and many of my memories are bound up with the area. They were very happy childhood days for me but since then, sadly, after waves of modernisation the pub has been stripped of all its old charm. I doubt whether anyone will ever feel nostalgic about any picture you could take of it now.