The Ship

One of the two pubs in Kirby-le-Soken still open today The Ship, although easily seen from the road, does not appear to be in such a prominent position as it’s competitor The Red Lion. This has not always been the case however as the Ship stands next to the ancient track leading to Kirby Quay - once the commercial hub of the village.

There is some confusion about the early identity of the building we now know as the Ship but village historian, Virginia Franklin, uncovered references to the building as a cottage or cottages called “White Elms” in the 17th Century where it appears in the Peck wills at the Public Record Office. Jess Jephcott discovered an alehouse called the Sloop Ship on licensing records and this seems to date from the earliest records in 1769, he also discovered a Sloop and Crown but this does not appear anywhere else. In any case the premises certainly seem to be an alehouse by the late 18th Century.

The pub today is an independent freehouse with two distinct bars, one of which has a restaurant extension. Until the mid 1980s the pub had very separate public and lounge bars in the old English tradition. The public bar was very basic with wooden floor and rickety furniture while the lounge bar had carpet and padded seats; the beer was also a few pence cheaper in the public bar, five years on however this traditional layout had changed and like many pubs around the country the pub was “opened” out with the removal the doors and partition walls and both bars became equal.

For many years the pub formed part of the Cobbold tied estate, which became Tolly Cobbold in 1957 with the amalgamation of the two Suffolk brewers. The take over of Tolly Cobbold by Brent Walker in 1989 was a less friendly affair and the property company soon closed the historic Ipswich brewery that produced all Tolly Cobbold beer and tried to move production to the former Camerons brewery at Hartlepool. The beer was less than palatable and after complaints from the regulars the landlord at the time, Duncan McGuirk, sent every barrel back and bought in beer from other brewers. The Brent Walker episode was short lived, however, and with the Ipswich brewery restored with a brave management buyout the tied estate became the property of a new pub management company, Pubmaster. After many years in pubco control the pub closed down in 2012, sold to local businessmen and reopened as an independent freehouse. The pub today is a thriving establishment with an excellent reputation for food as well as real ale.

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