The Maids Head Hotel, Tombland

The Maids Head Hotel sits on Tombland, a few minutes' walk from Norwich Cathedral, and claims to be the oldest hotel in the United Kingdom. That claim rests on more than 800 years of recorded use of the site. The inn was first mentioned in Norwich court records in 1287, when it was known as the Murtle Tavern — a detail the hotel has since pressed into service as the name of its own lager, 1287, brewed alongside a house ale called MH Ale. The building has been a hotel long enough to have appeared as a film location alongside Norwich Cathedral in The Go-Between (1971), and it turns up again in the Norfolk film location guides alongside Thorpe Station and Tombland itself.

The rooms

The hotel has 84 bedrooms, running from single rooms through to suites. The website describes each room as having been designed with what it calls an eye for detail and the use of what it terms gorgeous fabrics — language that suggests a deliberate effort to distinguish the interiors from the generic. The hotel holds a 4-star rating. Classic double rooms with breakfast start at £120 per night, according to the Visit Norwich listing. An Open House was scheduled for Sunday 19th April 2026, between 10am and 4pm, inviting prospective guests to walk through the building before booking.

The restaurant and bar

The WinePress Restaurant holds 2 AA Rosettes. The hotel runs a Spring Wine Tasting Dinner tied to the launch of its seasonal à la carte menu: a four-course tasting menu with wines chosen by the hotel's wine merchants, priced at £55 per person. The event page notes that these evenings book up quickly. On Saturdays, the WinePress also runs a Bottomless Brunch from noon to 4pm — 90 minutes of bottomless prosecco, lager and a selection of cocktails alongside a main course from the brunch menu, at £40 per person. In summer, the brunch moves to the courtyard. The bar stocks local ales, gins, whisky and vodka, and the hotel describes it as a champion of Norfolk producers. The two house drinks — MH Ale and 1287 lager — are the most direct expression of that.

The courtyard

The courtyard functions as an outdoor dining and events space through the warmer months. In summer the hotel runs Jazz evenings there — live music in what the event listing describes as a pretty outdoor setting. The same space hosts the Saturday Bottomless Brunch when the weather allows. It is a medieval courtyard in the middle of a city-centre hotel, which makes it an unusual thing to find: enclosed, relatively quiet given the location, and used consistently rather than left as an afterthought.

The hotel's position on the site

The hotel's own copy describes it as the hotel of stories, and the evidence bears that out in a modest way. The building's appearance in The Go-Between (1971) — Harold Pinter's adaptation of the L. P. Hartley novel, directed by Joseph Losey — places it in a specific cultural record. The film used Norwich Cathedral, Tombland and Thorpe Station as locations, and the Maids Head was among them. More recently, the hotel has been listed alongside the Cathedral in Norfolk's film location guides, which note productions including Jack the Giant Slayer (2013) and Tulip Fever (2016) in the same area of the city.

Events and occasions

Beyond the regular weekly brunch and the seasonal wine dinners, the hotel runs a Christmas programme that includes Party Nights, Festive Stays, Wreath Making and Carol Sunday Lunches. Weddings are a significant part of the business: the hotel has a range of period reception rooms and an in-house events team. The meeting and events facilities are described as versatile period rooms, which in a building of this age means something more specific than the phrase usually implies — the rooms have original features that most conference venues do not.

The setting

Tombland is one of the older parts of Norwich, immediately adjacent to the Cathedral Close and Erpingham Gate. The name has nothing to do with graves — it derives from the Old English for open space, and it was the city's original market place before the Norman Conquest. The hotel is roughly 700 metres from the Guildhall and within easy walking distance of the city's main shopping streets, the market, and the Cathedral. For a hotel of this age and size, the central location is genuinely useful rather than merely convenient to claim.