Woodbastwick

Beer and food metres from the brewhouse

The beer here travels metres rather than miles. Woodforde's brews its ales in Woodbastwick, and the Fur & Feather, its official taproom, sits a few steps from the brewhouse in a row of nineteenth-century cottages knocked through into one long pub. Brewing started next door in October 1989; the pub itself was finished in 1992. You can drink Wherry, Nelson's Revenge, Nog, Bure Gold and Admiral's Reserve within sight of where they were made, though not every one is always on.

The kitchen is not shy. The menu runs from garlic-breaded mushrooms and duck spring rolls through battered haddock with chips and mushy peas, a giant Yorkshire pudding filled with beef topside, hunters roast chicken, and sea bass with samphire and a prawn-and-butter sauce. There are sourdough pizzas, a mixed grill, and a three-bean chilli served with sticky rice and nachos. Sticky toffee pudding and a Bailey's cheesecake close things out. Dogs are welcome, there is a large garden with an outside bar, and inside there are darts, a pool table and live sports shown.

From brewery shop to thatched church

Attached to the pub is the brewery shop, which sells Woodforde's bottles and beer boxes alongside Norfolk products, beer jams and chutneys. Tours end with a tutored tasting in a bar called Nelson's Hideaway.

The village proper is a short walk away and arranged around a green ringed with thatched cottages, a thatched well house among them. Beside the green stands the church, which is also thatched. It is dedicated to St Fabian and St Sebastian. Inside are four medieval benches with poppy-head carvings, a restored medieval screen, piscinas set into both nave walls, and monuments to the Cator family. The tower is late-Perpendicular, with gargoyles and a battlemented parapet finished in crocketed finials; the arch-braced roof is fifteenth-century. Sir George Gilbert Scott restored the building around 1879, and the stained glass tells the life of Christ.

Broads on foot, arrivals with care

Woodbastwick sits on the River Bure, low in the water country between Salhouse and Cockshoot broads, with reedbed and wet woodland spreading out around it. The best approach on foot is from Salhouse Broad: turn left out of the car park and it is roughly ten minutes to the village, past the cottages and the green. The broad is free to enter all year, welcomes dogs kept under control, and hires canoes in season. A little further north, the floating wildlife centre at Ranworth Broad is reached by a boardwalk through woodland and reed, with water views, birdwatching and a small gift shop; dogs are not allowed on that nature trail.

Getting here takes some planning. Salhouse is the nearest station but the service is thin, so Hoveton & Wroxham is the more useful stop; the roads in are minor ones, and buses are few, so check a live timetable before you rely on one.

Bast, bindings and the village sign

The place-name means Bastwick Wood, and the village makes something of the "bast" in it: the pliable layer under lime-tree bark, once used as binding. Local telling has it that the village sign shows two invaders tying it round their leggings, which is a strange thing to build a settlement's emblem around, and entirely the sort of detail a village keeps. On the green, the well house still has its thatch, and the beer is still being made metres from the brewhouse.