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Picture source: Russell Judge

The Norman King was situated on Church Street. This pub closed in 2011 following a fire.

From Bedfordshire Heritage:

The Norman King public house on Church Street in Dunstable was first listed in 1975. It was associated with the nearby Old Palace Lodge and Kingsbury Farm, the public house having previously been a farm outbuilding. From 1927 to 1934 it was used as a library and museum, before being converted for use as riding stables. In 1959, Old Palace Lodge, which by this time had been subdivided to form two dwellings, was converted to form a hotel. At the same time, the former barn, now stables, was again converted to a new use, this time as a public house. The conversion involved extensive alteration and rebuilding, with stone imported for the purpose from demolished buildings in Cambridgeshire. It is claimed by the applicant's agents that the demolished buildings were of considerable antiquity, and that the stone was supplemented by other salvaged masonry which had formed part of the nearby Priory church. The building remained in use as a public house until 2011, when it was extensively damaged by fire as a result of what the applicant's structural engineer refers to as an arson attack. The fire destroyed the roof structure, the thatch roof covering and most of the building's interior. A request to assess the building for de-listing was made in February 2012. The former Norman King public house was severely damaged by the fire which occurred in August 2011. The roof structure and the thatch roof covering were destroyed, collapsing into the building's interior, and causing extensive damage throughout. The historic fabric has been lost above wall plate level, with only the ground floor walls, some bridging beams, parts of the first floor structure and a flat roofed extension having survived. The building had been extensively altered in the 1950's when it was converted to form the public house, and at that time, modern brickwork and structural steel were introduced alongside the surviving structural elements of the original barn. The south wall is the principal surviving historic fabric element of the building, being formed from stone masonry which incorporates a small number of randomly placed, moulded pieces of stone salvaged from another site of early date. The east elevation is constructed of C20 brick, parts of which are painted or rendered. Within this brickwork are incorporated sections of vertical timber framing, truncated in length and seemingly retained as evidence of the building's early origins rather than as structural elements of the building. The remaining areas of external walling are modern brick construction. The interior of the building retains little evidence of the original floor plan, there being almost no surviving fabric above ground-floor ceiling height, and the ground-floor area appears to have been altered as part of the enlargement of the public house area.

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