About Glendower Guest Apartments
Twenty years in the middle of Dereham
We're Steve and Jane. We bought Glendower House in 2006 as a renovation project and have been at it ever since — seven self-catering apartments here around the courtyard, and an eighth, Drayman's Rest, at The Cock, the pub we took on in 2020 two hundred yards up the road.
It's a small operation and we run it ourselves. When you ring, you get one of us.
A mill, a market town, and 170 years
Glendower House was built about 170 years ago on the site of Barnyard's Mill. Before that the land was Banyard's Yard, running down to what was then Orchard Lane and is now Commercial Road. A post mill stood here, and in the 1815 East Dereham Enclosure Claim John Banyard is listed as its miller and baker.
We've added to the house rather than changed it. Orchard Cottage went up on the west side in 2008, built new but designed to sit quietly alongside the Victorian brick rather than argue with it. On the south side a derelict swimming pool came down to make room for the two Cowper Annexes.
Named after the town
Our apartments are named from Dereham's history (as well as numbered)
Gardeners Cottage (1) was named by previous owners, and really was the gardener's.
Bonner (2) is named for Bishop Edmund Bonner (1500–1569), Bishop of London, whose thatched cottage stands beside St Nicholas' Church and is now the town museum. Nothing to do with this house — but very much part of the town.
Greenstone (3) Greenstone is the oldest name here by a very long way. In 1986 a polished greenstone axe head from the Neolithic was found in a field near Dereham, one of several prehistoric finds made locally that decade. Norfolk has no stone hard enough to make one, so it was carried here from somewhere else entirely — thousands of years before there was a town at all.
Withburga (4) was an East Anglian saint and abbess who died in 743 — possibly a daughter of Anna, King of East Anglia. She founded a monastery here. Her body was later stolen from its grave on the orders of the Abbot of Ely, and a spring rose in the empty tomb. St Withburga's Well is still in St Nicholas' churchyard, a few minutes' walk away.
Orchard Cottage (6) remembers the orchards that once ran along this road, back when it was Orchard Lane.
Cowper Annexes A and B take their name from William Cowper, one of Dereham's most celebrated residents. He changed the direction of eighteenth-century nature poetry by writing about ordinary life and the English countryside, and is counted among the forerunners of the Romantics. Coleridge called him "the best modern poet". Commercial Road, where we are, is a continuation of Cowper Road.
Drayman's Rest sits in the grounds of The Cock and sleeps up to six. A drayman is the man who delivers the beer.
And the name Glendower?
We've never been able to prove it. A relative of William Cowper wrote a novel about Owain Glyndŵr — Owen Glendower — the Welsh prince who challenged English rule and then vanished from history without trace. Given how close we are to Cowper Road, it's the likeliest explanation we've found. We rather hope it's the right one.
The pub, two hundred yards away
The Cock is a proper traditional freehouse — real ales, craft beers, wines and spirits, live music across most genres, and bands most Sundays from three. Dogs welcome. Food comes out of the Hatch, Thursday to Sunday: loaded flatbreads, fries, desserts and the like.
Glendower guests get 10% off food and drink there. Just tell the bar staff you're staying with us.
There's also the Roosters Events Room if you need dedicated space for a family gathering or a meeting, with catering by arrangement.
How we do things
We're not the cheapest place in Dereham and we don't try to be. What we offer is space, a proper kitchen, your own front door, free parking and quiet — usually for less in total than the same group would spend on hotel rooms. Morrisons is directly opposite, which makes self-catering genuinely easy.
Book direct through this site and you'll pay less than through any booking site, because there's no agency commission in the middle.
99% of our guests say they'd recommend us. After twenty years, that's the number we're most pleased with.
Find us
Glendower House, 10 Commercial Road, Dereham, Norfolk NR19 1AE 01362 652960 · steve@glendowerbb.com