CHURCHILL SNOOKER CLUB Pubs of Dover

DOVER KENT ARCHIVES

Sort file:- Dover, March, 2021.

Page Updated:- Wednesday, 31 March, 2021.

PUB LIST

PUBLIC HOUSES

Paul Skelton

Earliest 1987

Churchill Snooker Club

Latest 2007

192 London Road

Dover

Above photo by Paul Skelton 2007.

Another one not in Barry Smith's list as this is not a public house but a club.

From the Dover Express and East Kent News, Friday, 19 June, 1907. Price 1d.

Above picture showing the premises as Buckland School, hoisting a flag for a ceremony in 1907. The club is shown on the left.

Originally built as a school in Buckland, it later became Townsend's Club that offered boxing and table tennis during the 1970's, and eventually turned into Churchill's Snooker Club around about 1987 when Townsend Thoresen was on the lips of all people world-wide with the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise. As Churchill's it housed one of the very few indoor nine-pin skittle alleys in the Dover area.

Today (2008), like so many other clubs and public houses, it has been transformed into flats.

From the Dover Express, 24 July, 2003.

GOOD CAUSES: Linda Winter, from the hospice, accepts the cheque from Mick Graham

MEMBERS of Churchill's Snooker Club presented Demelza House and the Pilgrims Hospice with a cheque for £1,400 each on Sunday.

For the past five months club regulars have been involved in all kinds of fundraising activities, including a fancy dress competition, a skittles match, quizzes, raffles and sponsored swims.

Two men also had their heads shaved to help generate some cash for the good causes.

The club has fundraised for Demelza House in previous years, but decided to split the money raised this time with the Pilgrims Hospice, in memory of a regular who had been a patient there before his death earlier this year.

As well as the cash, a huge teddy bear was donated to Demelza House by Carol Smye-Rumsby who had rescued the bear from the tip and lovingly restored him.

From the Dover Express, 12 January 2006.

Beginning of the end for snooker club.

Closing time: Mick (left) and Gill Graham, Shirley and Pete Dry.

CHURCHILLS Club in London Road, Dover, is to close and will be turned into 10 two-bedroom houses.

Owners Pete Dry, 58, and Mick Graham, 53, have agreed a £460,000 fee for the pool-and-snooker club with an unknown developer.

The pair had wanted to sell the building as a club, but after nearly two years on the market there were no takers.

Churchills has more than 400 members, with four pool teams, eight darts teams and four skittle teams.

Former miner Mr Graham, who started as a barman there 18 years ago, said he would be sad to see the club go.

He said: “We have been running it since 1993 and we want our lives back, basically.

“It is unfortunate, but we tried to sell it as a club but there were no takers.

“I know the members aren’t too happy but I think they respect how hard me and Pete have worked. It is not a five-day-a-week job, it is seven.”

The building, with its low clock tower, was previously Buckland school. When it closed the property was then split in part for use as a parish centre and a club for Townsend Thoresen employees.

With the sale expected to be finalised this month, the club is set to close on March 1.

A farewell jazz night is planned for February 24, with live music from the Blues Sharks.

From the Dover Mercury, 26 January 2006. By Graham Tutthill.

Snooker club’s days are numbered as sale fails.

ATTEMPTS to sell Churchill’s Snooker Club in Dover have failed, district councillors were told on Thursday.

Members of the planning committee gave the go-ahead for the conversion of the building - the former Buckland School - into 10 two-bedroom homes.

The building dates from 1859 when it was opened as a school, and one of its main features is a distinctive clock tower and bell. Councillors say they would like to see that retained in any re-development.

When the school closed in the mid-1960s, it was used as a social club for Townsend Car Ferries staff and for the last 18 years it has been used as a snooker club.

It currently has between 700 and 800 members, but attempts by the owners to sell it during the last two years have not been successful.

The other part of the site is used as a parish centre by St Andrew’s Church, and the Rev Tim Foreman asked the committee if the scheme could be deferred so that talks could continue on whether the centre could also be included in the proposal.

“The applicant has made us an offer which we have been pleased to accept,” he said. “We would like to see the whole site being redeveloped.”

The centre is used by various groups including a play group and a Scout group.

The committee was told that the applicants wanted to get on with the work, and it was up to the church to apply for their own planning permission.

Cllr Margaret Sansum said the proposal would be an improvement, with less noise. Kent Police also welcomed it, saying the area was vulnerable to street crime.

But the town council objected, saying they considered it an over-intensive use of the site.

Above advert appeared in the Dover Mercury 19 July 2007.

LICENSEE LIST

DRY Peter 2007

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