This large shop unit was converted in 1998 into the Flour & Firkin, part of the large chain of Firkin pubs which had grown out of David Bruce's original small brewpub chain. Unfortunately, by the time this opened, Bruce had sold the business and it was owned by the massive Allied Domeq group. The original concept had been a chain of pubs which all had their own in-house breweries but by then this had been abandoned and beers here were supplied from the Finnesco & Firkin (previously and latterly the Reindeer) in Norwich and were of very poor quality.

After the Firkin brand collapsed in 2001, the pub went through a number of identities, none of which was likely to be of interest to Real Ale drinkers…