Research :
See Young's book, page 86, for possible explanations of the earlier pubname.
The original owners were Norwich City Council.
S. & P. Brewery acquired the premises in September 1932,
in a swap deal with the Black Prince and Waterloo
pubs in St. Peter Mancroft parish. Three other pubs
passed to S. & P. in this manner : 4 for the price of 2.
This was done to enable the construction of the new City Hall.
Even after 1945, the pub reputedly had a sand-covered
floor, and beers were served straight from the barrel.
The bar offered rails for both hands and feet.
Research :
From : Sir Richard Popinjay (a.k.a. Papingay) whose house
it had been. Formerly the site of St. Cuthbert's Church.
A member of the Popinjay family sat in Parliament
for Norwich under Edward III.
When it became an inn, the sign was naturally a green parrot.
It may have been operating as early as the 16th Century.
An ancient map, of the late-1630s, actually shows the hanging pub sign.
The pub was mentioned in the trial of Royalist rioters in 1648,
following the blowing-up of the Committee House.
County Justices were accustomed to meeting there by the 17th C.
The Great Fire of 1507 is believed to have started near this pub.
Research :
Brewer George Dady had left the pub by 1811.
Masonic Lodge meetings were held here in 1816
(Ann Tompson, landlady)
The 'Upper' in the address relates to Rose Lane,
not the later Prince of Wales Road.
From the advent of the railway in 1844,
Rose Lane was the obvious way to the station.
The pub was north of Rose Lane - possibly not very far away from it.
Charles Southgate, then the landlord, thought he should -
almost literally - jump on the bandwagon and re-name his pub.
Charles was shown at the 'old' pub in the 1845
Official List,
but at the Railway Tavern in the Trades Directory of the same year.
Charles did not bother to wait and see if the name change
was effective, and - by the very next year - had moved
to the Richmond Hill Tavern.
By 1854 a new landlord had seen the creation of at least
one pub much nearer the Station with a similar name; so,
also re-asserting the importance of Empire, reinstated the old name.
He was Thomas Cooper, then aged 31 and a
cabinet-maker in Strikes Yard, Mountergate.
Rather worryingly, the Railway Tavern was also listed
in 1854, under the licensee name of John Grimes.
As Cooper had been replaced at the Imperial Arms by 1856,
it may be that he left the pub sometime in 1854 itself.
There is no record of the exact date that the pub name was reverted;
and the temporary name may never have been officially recorded.
Research :
Research :
A deal earlier in the 20th Century,
this building had been a Berni Inns restaurant.
Research :
No reference to Griffin Lane appears after 1830.
This may well be explained by a re-naming to Queen Street.
Sometime prior to closure, the pub was taken over
as part of the Back's wine merchant's portfolio.
Weston's Brewery had been taken over by Youngs & Crawshay in August 1864.
It seems very likely that YCY sold the pub to Back's quite
soon after August 1864, rather than in the years 1865 -1867.