A new £2.2m Wetherspoon pub will raise a glass to its namesake hero when it opens on Tuesday.
Thirsty shoppers will finally get a look inside the building that has filled an unlovely gap in Gorleston’s busy high street, and aims to add to the lively mix of businesses.
Town mayor Kerry Robinson Payne will do the honours at 2pm in the presence of his two surviving grandchildren Jim Adams and Doreen Beckett, and great great grandson Stewart William Adams.
The chain outlet is a new-build on the site of a former Methodist chapel and most recently GT Motors, which has created 55 jobs.
MORE: Opening of new Gorleston Wetherspoons pub pushed back until next yearIt has been named after the legendary life-saver William Adams, who was born in Gorleston in 1864, following a vote run by this newspaper.
Known locally as the “hero of Gorleston” Adams is credited with saving 140 people from drowning, mainly during his time as a bathing hut attendant on Gorleston beach.
He was also a swimming instructor and coached some of the leading swimmers of the day.
He died in 1913 and is buried in Gorleston Old Cemetery.
MORE: Hero lifesaver tops our Gorleston Wetherspoons name pollThe new pub will open from 8am until 12 midnight every day and food will be served from opening until 11pm, every day.
Kevin Huggins, director of Fusion hairdressers and chairman of Gorleston Traders Association said the pub was a welcome addition to the shopping hub, and a further boost following the re-opening of the Palace Cinema last year.
He said:“If it brings 50 extra people down the high street that will be good, and I am sure at weekends it will be buzzing. It just adds to the fluency and vibrancy of the high street.”
MORE: Works on Wetherspoon pub William Adams in Gorleston put on hold after crypt discoveryChildren, accompanied by an adult, are welcome in the pub up until 9pm, throughout the week.
It is wheelchair accessible throughout the ground floor and garden, with a specially-adapted toilet on the ground floor.
The new-look pub features one bar, as well as a beer garden at the back and a pavement-café style area at the front.
Historical photos and details of local history, as well as artwork and images of local scenes and characters of the area tip their hat to local history, together with information boards relating to events.
Artwork includes an oak sculpture of a herring girl, by Simon O’Rourke.
Tuesday’s event will also see the Gorleston-on-sea Heritage Group unveil a plaque to mark the fact that the William Adams’ site was for 150 years the site of the Gorleston High Street Methodist Chapel.
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