Gun Tavern 1950s

Folkestone Herald 30-11-1957

Guildhall Street by “L.R.J.”

It was a quiet little lane, about 12ft. wide, with few buildings along its length and wide open spaces either side of it. Almost a country lane. Shellons Lane was that part of the Guildhall Street of today from the Town Hall to the Cheriton Road turning, and it is so shown on a street map of 1782 in the possession of Folkestone Public Library. The present Shellons Street was then Griggs Lane, and the part of Guildhall Street from the Cheriton turning onwards was called Broad Mead, Bottom Lane.

Why “Shellons” Lane? Shellons was the name of a large field on the west side of the lane, and the thoroughfare, such as it was, took its name from it, just as Copthall Gardens derived from the field called Copt Hall, to the north of Shellons Lane.

Both these fields belonged to the King`s Arms Farm, which in all consisted of about 171 acres. An old map of 1698 lists the various fields that formed the farm. There were only one or two old buildings on the west side of Guildhall Street a century and a half ago, and very few on the east side. Shellons Lane was ..... just a lane.

On the site where the Town Hall now stands was the King’s Arms inn, with next to it two or three small buildings. Behind it was the town gaol, with stocks in which malefactors were placed. Lord Radnor was the hereditary gaoler. Some time after 1782 the King`s Arms was moved across the road to part of the site on which now stands the Queen`s Hotel. It was the corner building of Cow Street (now Sandgate Road) and Shellons Lane. The old King`s Arms buildings were demolished, and a building known as “The Cistern House” was erected on the site. This too was pulled down in 1859, to make way for the present Town Hall, opened in 1861. The Town Hall had no portico until 18 years later.

The first houses on the eastern side of Guildhall Street were erected in 1844, approximately where the Guild­hall Hotel and the shop next door now stand. The hotel itself was opened probably about 30 years later, for the first reference to it is in 1870, when the proud land­lord, named Andrews, an­nounced “Mine is the only house in Folkestone where there is a stand-up bar like the London style.”

By 1844 Guildhall Street - still Shellons Lane - was built up on the east side to about the present premises of Messrs.  Halfords. Development went on until by 1870 there were houses and shops up to the corner of Griggs Lane (Shellons Street), though Messrs. Vickery`s  premises were built a little later. For nearly a century the comer building now occupied by Messrs. Olby was a baker's shop. The premises were built in 1856. It is interesting to note that a very old boundary wall still exists between the premises of Richmond’s dairy and Halfords, a wall more than 150 years old. Towards the end of the nine­teenth century Guildhall Street developed with the expansion of the town and undoubtedly became a popular shopping centre, but it was still far removed from the Street of today.

The west side of the Street, as has already been stated, had very few buildings in 1782. The removal of the King’s Arms from the present Town Hall site to the comer opposite may have been one of the first developments on this side of Guildhall Street. The exact date is uncertain, but it was probably after 1782. The road junction at that time was small, the meeting place of four narrow lanes, and the building stood well out into what is now the roadway. It was not until 1882, and after protracted litigation between the owners and the Corporation that the junction was widened to its present pro­portions. The Kings Arms was a small hostelry by modern standards, with a billiards room at the back and a skittle alley. One wall ran a short distance along Guildhall Street and appears to have been a popular place for posting notices of auction sales, meetings and so on. Later the hostelry was ex­tended and improved. When all the litigation was ended (there is a sizeable volume of the proceedings in the Reference Library) the King’s Arms was pulled down, and on May 30^th, 1885, the Queen’s Hotel was opened.

A large garden occupied most of the length of Guildhall Street from the King’s Arms, nearly to what is now Messrs. Andrews’ shop. It is possible that this gar­den, quite extensive in length and depth, may have belonged to a Mr. Solomon, who built Alexander Gardens.

On the site of Stace’s stood two small cottages, known as Pay’s cottages, and where Mr. Lummus’s cycle shop is now situated stood another building, called Gun cottage. In the course of years the open spaces were built over. On the site of the Playhouse cinema once stood a substantial property known as Ivy House, and behind it, approached by the alley-way which still exists, were stables. A little further along was Marlborough House, the resi­dence of a veterinary surgeon.

Part of the Guildhall Street of days gone by was the Gun barn, shown on the 1782 map. About 1840 the Gun brewery occupied the site of Messrs. Walter’s furnishing store. There is reason to believe that a brewery originally stood on the site of Messrs. Plummer Roddis in Rendezvous Street and was transferred to the new site rather more than a century ago.

The Gun Tavern takes its name from an old gun of the Tudor period, upended, that had long been in position at the comer of Guildhall Street

and Cheriton Road. It was removed to the western end of the Leas prior to the 1914-18 war, and about that period it disappeared. What became of it is a mystery to this day.

The Gun brewery - and breweries were small and many in those days - was owned by a man named Ham Tite. His beer may not always have been up to standard, for in a County Cunt case in 1871 a witness said the beer was so bad that his customers couldn’t drink it. The brewery continued until about 1880, but by 1882 part of it had become, of all things, a Chapel and coffee house. It was known as the Emanuel Mission Church, conducted by a Mr. Toke. The tinted windows of the church remain and there is still an “atmosphere” about the building, though it has long ceased to serve any religious purpose.

The Gun smithy is certainly a piece of old Folkestone, for the building itself has changed, there has been a smithy on this site for at least a century.

The Shakespeare Hotel at the comer of Guildhall Street and Cheriton Road is more than a century old, for all its up-to-date facade. It was refronted in 1897, when it belonged to the Army and Navy Brewery Company. In 1848 it was the Shakes­peare Tavern, and a directory of a later date announces that tea and quoits were available. For some obscure reason it was stated to be “near the Viaduct”.

So the transformation of Guildhall Street from the vir­tually open fields of Shellons Lane into a modern, progres­sive and popularshopping centre has taken place in less than 150 years. The unpaved, narrow lane is no more, gone are some of the ”landmarks” of over 80 years ago, many of the old names have been lost. Changes and development have given to Folkestone a street of which the town can be proud, a street of many trades, a progressive street, a street of good and efficient service to the public, a street of shops where the customer is always right. Guildhall Street.