Former pub sells at auction for £378,500
The former Cottage pub in Cromer was sold at auction for £378,500. Picture: David Bale - Credit: Archant
A former pub in north Norfolk sold at auction for £378,500, after plenty of interest from bidders.
One of the rooms inside the former Cromer hospital and Cottage pub in Louden Road, Cromer. Picture: Courtesy of Auction House East Anglia - Credit: Archant
It was bought at an Auction House East Anglia sale at Dunston Hall Hotel, near Norwich, on Wednesday, February 12.
The two men who bought it - who did not wish to give their names to the EDP - may comment on their plans at a later date.
The historic former cottage hospital, which is a Grade II-listed building, has planning permission to be converted into eight apartments.
The listing on the Auction House East Anglia website read: "It was formerly the town's hospital. Over the years the building has had a variety of uses, including a Conservative Club and most recently a social club and public house."
One of the rooms inside the former Cromer hospital and Cottage pub in Louden Road, Cromer. Picture: Courtesy of Auction House East Anglia - Credit: Archant
READ MORE: Popular Norfolk pub closes and could be turned into eight homes
According to Mary Northway, a former chairman of the Cromer Community Hospital League of Friends, who died in 2017, the hospital was built in 1888 thanks to the "generosity of a Mr Collison".
It was closed when the hospital moved to its current site in Mill Road in 1932.
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Mrs Northway wrote a history of Cromer Hospital, where she recalled a friend inviting her to tea in a part of the former hospital which had been converted to a home.
One of the rooms inside the former Cromer hospital and Cottage pub in Louden Road, Cromer. Picture: Courtesy of Auction House East Anglia - Credit: Archant
She said: "We sat in the garden room, which she told me used to be the morgue - as I recall, cupboard doors high in the wall, were where the bodies came through from upstairs.
"I think there must have been a chute as the stairs are very narrow."
The building was later used as a Conservative Club, and then as the Cottage pub, which opened in 2005 and closed in June last year.
North Norfolk District Council granted outline planning permission to convert the building to six two-bedroom flats and two one-bedroom flats. However, members of the Facebook group Enjoy Cromer More suggested the building be put to another use. One person said: "I thought it would make a good Wetherspoon's."
The former Cottage pub in Cromer was sold at auction for £378,500. Picture: David Bale - Credit: Archant
Another said: "[An] American-style diner with licence and live music would be nice."The Cottage in Louden Road, Cromer had a guide price of £350,000."
