Two pubs stand almost shoulder to shoulder beside the River Bure at Coltishall, facing the broad grassy common where people picnic, launch canoes and watch the paddlecraft go by. This is the upper navigable point on this stretch of the Bure, where the river narrows towards Coltishall Lock through reed-fringed, tree-lined reaches, and the common carries 219 metres of free 24-hour moorings with an electric charging point. Boats have long mattered here. The village is said to be the birthplace of the Norfolk wherry, and the boatyards on Anchor Street once built keels and wherries to carry goods upstream as far as Aylsham.
The Rising Sun, at 28 Wroxham Road, can be very busy in summer, with several rooms, a large bar, a pool table and river-view dining. Along the walls are old sewing machines and a 1950s sixpenny slot machine. The kitchen sends out a mixed fresh-and-smoked fish pie with mature Cheddar mash, miso-and-honey glazed salmon with sticky rice and wok-fried greens, moules marinière, and wood-fired pizzas including the Padana and the Milano Forte. Woodforde's Wherry and Adnams Ghost Ship are the regular cask beers. Well-behaved dogs are welcome on leads in the bar areas, with water bowls outside and dog ice cream to be had; worth confirming when you book a table.
Next door, the King's Head occupies a red-brick, curved-gabled building of about 1700, licensed as a public house since 1780, with an open fire and a small garden. Its central door has a segmental fanlight and an ornate Doric doorcase. The menu runs to smoked salmon, avocado and king-prawn salad, chargrilled Norfolk liver and bacon with mash, greens and red-wine sauce, and the King Steak Burger. Adnams Southwold Bitter is a regular beer at the bar.
A third pub, the Red Lion, sits a short walk from the common in intricate two-level, 16th-century premises with a cosy lower bar and a log burner. It keeps three changing cask ales, serves all-day breakfasts and light bites, and runs beer festivals at Easter and in late summer.
For provisions, Hewitt and Grant on the High Street is worth the walk. Tom Grant took the butcher's on in 2016 and kept the Hewitt name, because that family had run the shop since the 1970s. "I wanted to pay respect to what had come before me and to keep the traditions alive," he says. Come the season, it is the place for roasting advice, pigs in blankets and freshly made pork stuffing. A Piece of Cake, a tearoom in the former Salvation Army hall, bakes gluten-free lemon drizzle, fruit and cheese scones, and chocolate brownie, and looks out across the marshes from a walled courtyard that seats thirty; the meat comes from Hewitt's, the milk from Norton's Dairy and the bread from Linzers. Beyond these there is an Indian, a Chinese, Landamore's fish and chips, a greengrocer and a Post Office.
The parish church of St John the Baptist, thatched and flint-walled, holds late-Saxon fabric in its north wall, complete with reused fragments of Roman tile and two small double-splayed circular windows. Inside are carved grotesque heads and a Norman square font raised on five columns. Henry III made Coltishall a free town in 1231.
Walkers can take the six-mile circuit to Horstead from Anchor Street, out past the lock and mill and back along the old railway path. Norwich is nine miles south-west; the seasonal Bure Valley Railway stops at Coltishall Halt, a request halt about twenty minutes' walk from the common. Down at the bridge, the last reputed sighting of Black Shuck, the red-eyed black dog of Norfolk legend, was recorded in 1950.