Bill Bryson OBE, writer, commissioner for English Heritage and president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, has written Mongers of Hingham a corkingly elegant testimonial. Owner Sam Coster described Bryson, a customer of Mongers, as a very jolly, warm and entertaining man.
 
Bryson wrote: 'If you like to prowl around old stuff (and there is something wrong if you don't), there isn't any more delightful and rewarding place to do it than Monger's.'
 
Bill Bryson's latest book, just out in paperback, 'At Home: a History of Private Life', is a miscellany of home, ramblingly related to the Victorian rectory in Norfolk where he lives, which is sourced from 508 books carefully listed on his website. Notwithstanding a thousand answers, At Home does not help with that most vexing architectural salvage question: why is the Belfast sink so named (everywhere except Belfast that is, where it is known as a jawbox)?