Bar Man: Columnist Jeff Hoyle on latest exhibition at Lynn Museum in King’s Lynn and pub names

In his weekly The Bar Man column, Jeff Hoyle chats about the latest exhibition at Lynn Museum and pub names…

There is a new exhibition at Lynn Museum and there is no better time to visit as admission is free during the winter months.

You will be able to see works by Warhol, Hockney and Landseer, but the exhibits that caught my attention included a small badge of a Talbot, a breed of hunting dog that died out in the late 18th century.

My imperfect memory suggested that I had visited a pub called the Hark to Talbot, but my searches revealed nothing.

However, there are plenty of pubs called simply The Talbot, whether due to a link with hunting or more likely to the family of Simon de Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England in the 14th Century, whose descendants possessed land all over the country and had a Talbot on their arms.

Famous hunting dogs are remembered in the names of pubs, strangely enough around Lancashire where I guess that they predate the Industrial Revolution as they seem out of place in the mill towns where I spent my youth.

The Hark to Dandler in Bury is still open and gratifyingly welcomes dogs.

Both the Hark to Towler in nearby Heywood and the one in Tottington are closed which is a shame as the Tottington one boasts a rare, if not unique, ceramic bar counter front believed to be by Pilkington’s and one of only fourteen such ceramic counters remaining in the UK.

The Hark to Topper in Oldham has also bitten the dust, though the more rural Hark to Bounty in Slaidburn in the beautiful Trough of Bowland remains, and visitors may be lucky enough to see the 16th Century function room.

Just when I had reached the conclusion that the ‘Hark to’ name is restricted to Lancashire, I came across the Hark to Mopsey in Normanton, near Wakefield.

The name being a corruption of Mobsey supposedly referring to the lead dog of a pack of hounds owned by landlord Robert Crowther in the 1890s.

It is strange not to find more top hounds celebrated in counties more traditionally associated with hunting, but surely there is an opportunity for someone to open a pub here in Lynn and name it after one of squirrel chasing dogs that I see being exercised in the Walks.

Hark to Fluffy anyone? The other item in the exhibition that I was taken with was a rather battered cement pub sign with just a trace of paint.

It was a dog from the sign of the Dog and Partridge which was in Thetford until its closure in 1971, and I guess it was rescued from the subsequent demolition of the building.

As always, the brilliant Norfolk Pubs website came up trumps. ‘It was reported February 1950 that Mrs. Carter was the only female licensee in the borough and that the house had been in the hands of the Carter family for over 57 years. Mrs. Carter still did the cellar work, but her daughter Miss Barbara Carter was then doing most of the bar work. Mrs. Carter's father was James Kybird who served in the bar when he was 83. He was still alive at the time of the report.’

Many years earlier ‘Licensee Spendlove provided a handsome dinner for the cricket teams of Thetford and Feltwell on Wednesday 20th September 1849. The cricket match had been friendly and well conducted with Feltwell winning by one run and seven wickets to go.’

There’s lots more to see at the exhibition, entitled Woof! But there is a rumour that one of the dogs is missing. The police are following a lead.

bar.man@btinternet.com