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2 High Street
Tenterden
Above photo, date unknown. |
Above photo, date unknown. |
Above photo showing the inside of the pub, date unknown. Information
from Chris Houghton says the pieces of paper hanging on the walls were
all bank notes, many from the WW2 era. |
Above photo, circa 1950. |
Above postcard, circa 1950. |
Above postcard circa 1950, kindly sent by Rory Kehoe. |
Above photo, circa 1950. |
Above photo, date unknown, kindly sent by Mark Farrow. |
Above photo, date unknown, kindly sent by Stephen Starbuck. |
Above photo showing KM veteran car rally passing, circa 1934, kindly sent by Roger Smoothly. Archivist at
www.kentphotoarchive.com |
Above photo, date unknown. |
Above photo, date unknown. |
Above photo, 1976. Person as yet unknown. |
Above photo, 1982, kindly sent by Mark Farrow. |
Above Google image, October 2010. |
Above card, date unknown. |
Above engraving showing the front of the card, date unknown. |
It started life as wine cellars in 1700 for Avery, the wine merchant, and
remained in the family for over 200 years. The dinking saloon was opened in
the 1880s I believe at the time it was known as the "Greyhound" in its underground site.
Then called the "Olde Cellars" it was closed in 1986. It is now
Boardroom a sports retail shop (2015.)
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Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate & Cheriton Herald 12 June 1926.
By order of the Executors of the Will of J. S. Winser, dec'd. Tenterden, Kent.
Banks and Son, Will sell by auction at the "White Lion Hotel," Tenterden,
on Wednesday next, 16th June 1926, at 3 o'clock p.m., that valuable and
well-known
Freehold Fully Licensed Property known as "Ye Olde Cellars," Tenterden.
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Yass Tribune-Courier, Monday 3 April, 1939.
COBWEBS LEFT UNTOUCHED.
Public House In Kent.
In the High Street of the little town of Tenterden, in the Weald of
Kent, is an underground public-house where they have not brushed the
cobwebs down for 50 years, states the London "Evening Standard."
Cobwebs festoon the lamp brackets, drape hundreds of old bottles' in a
dusty mesh, and make a curtain
between the rafters.
The only cleaning they do at "Ye Olde Cellars" is to sweep and sawdust
the floor every morning and dust the beer barrels and wine casks the
customers use for seats. Barrels and casks serve as tables, too. There
is no bar.
Pinned to the rafters are thousands of visiting cards, old envelopes,
postcards and letters.
This is just an old custom of "Ye Olde Cellars. Years ago someone
started it, and it has just gone on. No one is ever asked to leave his
card, but if anyone wants to do it the landlord, Mr. Edgar Mittell, will
give him a drawing-pin with which to perform the rite.
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From local publication 1939
No-one would take a vacuum cleaner to "The
Cellars".
A Salesman might as well try to sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo as
offer a vacuum cleaner to the landlord of the Cellars at Tenterden.
For although in this underground pub dust and cobwebs abound, no one
ever goes round with dustpan and brush, but rather this accumulation of
the passing years is preserved as part of the atmosphere.
The popularity of the place is evident from the hundreds of visitors and
local customers who turn off the High-street, down the wooden steps, and
Into the wooden-raftered bar below street level.
Two massive barrels do duty as a counter: around the walls are even
bigger barrels; and for seats there are specially-topped casks and beer
crates.
VISITORS' SOUVENIRS.
A never-failing source of interest are hundreds of visiting cards,
letters, photographs, messages, and mementoes, pinned to the rafters and
barrels, left by visitors from many different parts of the world. This
idea, started by regular customers, caught on until nearly everyone
visiting for the first time felt bound to leave some kind or souvenir.
There are theatrical bills, cards commemorating race meetings—and even a
photograph telling the story of a romance which began at the Cellars
between a couple staying at Tenterden volunteer agricultural camp. All
the rafters are black with age and festooned with cobwebs.
As the name implies, the part now used as the bar was once the cellars,
where liquor was stored for sale in the wholesale premises above.
A reminder of the former days is a wooden corking machine, believed to
be 150 years old, still kept near the new empty dust-encrusted casks. It
has a leather holder for the bottle, a cork-softening device, and a
mallet for hammering in the bottle stoppers.
A LICENSEE 50 YEARS.
The present landlord, Mr. W. S. Mitell, has been in charge for six
years. When his father, the late Mr. E. G. Mitell, who held the licence
for 50 years, went to the Cellars to work, he was employed by Mr. R.
Avery, whose family retained the licence for 100 years. Record of the
licence can be traced back to the year 1700, but although it allowed
opening seven days a week, it was not until very recently that the bar
was opened for Sunday trade.
Above photo showing An evening in the Cellars. The landlord, Mr. Will
Mitell, chats with his customers. |
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Sussex Agricultural Express 3 June 1949.
YE OLDE CELLARS TENTERDEN.
As from June 5th this well-known old Kent Inn will be open
on Sundays. Fully Licensed. Fremlins Elephant Brand Ales and Stouts. |
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Kentish Express - Friday 22 August 1980.
No cobwebs in the old cellars now.
It's enough to make the long departed bucolic characters who were
once regular patrons of a below ground bar turn in their graves.
"Ye Old Cellars" at Tenterden has gone all posh. Not a single cobweb
or a speck of dust after be found. Sawdust on the floor? That's
gone, too.
The famous lower bar were farmers and their men in rough country
clothes and boots used to meet, is now the ancient pub's saloon and
restaurant.
A big effort has been made to preserve the original atmosphere. Most
of the barrels and old bottles, minus the dust, remain.
Present regulars, forewarned of impending changes at the end of last
year, have accepted the new look philosophically.
"I think it is very nice," said Arthur Goldsmith. Arthur, 80, a
retired master baker, has been using the bar for the last 57 years.
George Pay, a retired building work at, was not fuzzy. "As long as I
can still get a drink there I'm not worried," he declared.
Harry Brunger, 81, of Hales Close, Tenterden, also approved of the
clean-up. His only complaint was that the bar was too dark.
John Sanderson, who took over the inn with his wife Sheila last
November, said about one-third of the bar space was now devoted to
the restaurant.
John (in picture) is pleased with his first weekend at "Ye Old
Cellars Mark 2." "There was a marvellous response," he said. "We
were packed out on Saturday night.
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LICENSEE LIST
MITTELL Edgar G 1890-1939+
MITTELL S Will after 1939+
SANDERSON John & Sheila 1980+
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