Cold! (The Painted Barn, Barnham Broom)

Painted Barn,

Barnham Broom,

Mon-Sat 09:30-16:30,

Highly Recommended

In the winter Mrs Crusader has a strict 30 mile ride limit for any trips she is invited on. Therefore I'm always excited when I hear of new cafes in the Mrs Crusader winter ride goldilocks zone (MCWRGZ). So I couldn't believe my luck when last week I was told about two MCWRGZ cafes via my Facebook page.

I immediately arranged to visit the first one, The Painted Barn at Barnham Broom, for this week's ride.

However when I woke up this morning we had been visited by a slight frost. Don't get me wrong I'm always up for a bit of health and safety and don't fancy the thought of skidding off my bike but with the sun out I was confident conditions would be fine. Mrs Crusader was persuaded it would be ok but then I was contacted by the other cycling guests I had invited (and they know who they are) who had decided it was too risky and pulled out. Fortunately Mrs Crusader was still prepared to give it ago.

This put my cycle ride safety credentials under pressure so I was mighty relieved that road conditions did turn out to be acceptable (just) and although we rode cautiously it wasn't the road surface that was the main problem but the fact it was really, really cold. I had the quickest loss of feelings in my extremities on record (yes I have a spreadsheet for this) so when Mrs Crusader suggested we cut out part of my target 30 mile loop I was easily persuaded (although of course I pretended to be disappointed). In fact I had already planned a shortcut to Barnham Broom where we found the Painted Barn on the village outskirts.

Outside The Painted Barn and it was proper cold

The cafe is part of a barn complex that includes, a yoga centre and home furnishings shop so it was unsurprising when I found that I was the only bloke there and as more people turned up there seemed to be a midweek mid morning natterthon going on inside.

Inside the Painted Barn as the tables started to fill up

I obviously had more manly things to focus on so I went to check out the cake selection which had 3 of the big 5 sponges plus a good selection of scones (although sadly no fruit ones) and tray bakes resulting in a good effective cake selection mark.

The sponge cake part of today's cake selection

I went for Coffee and Walnut to accompany my hot chocolate while Mrs Crusader had Carrot cake with her black americano.

Very good cakes and drinks on offer

The cakes were very good and Mrs Crusader thought her coffee was at the top end of the black americano ratings. My hot chocolate was a good one too. The Painted Barn has only been open since the summer and although this was my first visit I'm sure to be back (especially as it is in the MCWRGZ) and I highly recommend a visit.

It was a very cold, crisp and short ride today

Now we were finally warm it was time to go outside again to refreeze. Fortunately it had warmed up a bit and any remaining slippery patches had gone so we could make quicker progress on the way home. Hopefully it will be warmer weather when I visit the second new MCWRGZ cafe in a fortnight's time when my less hardy cycling guest may even come to.

Scores based on 2 ratings (last visited 3/11/22)

Hot Choc Quality	Guest Hot Drink Quality	Effective Cake Selection	Cake Quality	Ambiance and Atmosphere	Café Rating
6.55	8.38	6.95	7.65	7.90	7.49

Route (we would have taken if it wasn't so cold)

Click here to down load 30 mile Norwich Barnham Broom loop GPX file to your GPS