29 April 2026

Beer and sandwiches: At the Blue Bell, Stoke Ferry

This column is our weekly pub review, written by pintsmen, women and children across the nation. Suggestions to letters@newstatesman.co.uk

By New Statesman

Illustration by Marta Signori

The Blue Bell was built in 1794, and there are records of it feeding and watering – mostly watering – the agricultural workers of Stoke Ferry and environs until the turn of the 21st century. Unfortunately, by then it had been run down by a series of conglomerates who successively failed to invest enough to tempt custom over the threshold, and by 2019 it was on the brink of being converted into housing. But a campaign to save the village’s last remaining pub, backed by concrete action in the form of a Community Enterprise fund, gave it a new lease of life in 2021. Now a picture-box “village pub” fit to grace any Sunday night drama series, it acts as a proper community hub, both full of locals and welcoming to outsiders.

Classics and croquettes

There are real ales aplenty – enough to win the Campaign for Real Ale’s West Norfolk Branch Pub of the year for 2026 – alongside everything else you might expect. The food centres around pub classics, although for the (slightly, don’t push it) more adventurous, you can sometimes find home-made chorizo croquettes or Asian-inspired crispy pork. There’s a separate pizza list and – as befits somewhere aiming to serve the community – an excellent children’s menu, even a set menu for the over-60s.

Darling buds of Stoke Ferry

But mostly the delight here is the way a village has come together to turn what was a failing, slightly soulless enterprise into a genuine place for socialising, the way things ought to – possibly even used to – be, even if only in an HE Bates novel.

The Blue Bell, Lynn Road, Stoke Ferry, Norfolk