Pub special as Remember When returns

I’m happy to say that after several months absence, Remember When is back.

It’s a strange and traumatic time for us all (myself included), but I hope restarting the page will bring some happiness to readers, so in this, the first piece since March, we will start by looking back at some of the town’s long-lost pubs.

With a change in trend in the last 20 years at least, the pub circuit has altered dramatically, however so has our social time with more and more of us doing different things.

The smoking ban didn’t help the licensed trade, but there are still many favoured watering holes spread far and wide to choose from.

They are often still looked at with much affection and a place where we’ve met friends, partners and those we’ve eventually married.

We’ve had a gentle few pints or even taken things to another level in these places of social activity and some of us including me have worked in one.

We all have a story to tell when it comes to the ‘pub’.

Ashford lost quite a few in the name of progress and redevelopment like many other towns.

Many were lost during the 1970s leaving punters dismayed.

The large proportion of Ashford’s long-standing stock of pubs had survived the war, but the war on development saw one after another bulldozed for road schemes, shopping centres and other developments.

Breweries such as Ind Coope, Courage, Whitbread, Fremlins, Shepherd Neame and Watmey’s all had public houses in the town over the years , with some losing large numbers of ‘houses’ during the 1970s.

Courage was a notable brewery to lose out at the time with sites such as the Somerset Arms and the Park Hotel falling foul of the bulldozer.

This week, we start the barrel rolling, by taking a look back at a pair of Ashford’s memorable and much missed hostelries, last visited in the 1970s.

Do you have any photographs or slides of old Ashford you would be willing to loan me, to enable them to be scanned for possible feature in the Kentish Express? Please don’t delay, get in touch!

Please email me: rememberwhen_kmash@hotmail.co.uk

2 1971 - The Park Hotel which was also owned by Courage and situated in Wolseley Road. The hostelry was also demolished for the ringway project in 1973

1971 - The Courage-owned Somerset Arms at the corner of North Street and Somerset Road seen in this rare colour image taken less than two years before it was demolished for the ringway project 1