Brewery Tap 1960s

Folkestone Herald 11-6-1966

Local News

Albert Taylor was seven years old when his parents arrived in Folkestone 60 years ago to take over the licence of the Brewery Tap in Tontine Street. Man and boy, Mr. Taylor has been there ever since. If a prize was given for the best-kept public house in Folkestone it would surely go to the Brewery Tap. Mr. Taylor, who took over the licence when his father died in 1947, is a publican with an inordinate pride in his trade. Every glass, every mirror and every piece of glass shines. Not a speck of dust sullies the shelves or counters, No doubt about it, Mr. Taylor and his wife, Ivy, are very public house proud.

“When my father first came here from Tilmanstone in 1906 he was warned that the house had a bad name”, said Mr. Taylor, as he leaned across the spotless counter of the saloon bar. “The place was very dirty and the trade had fallen off very badly”. A big change came over the Brewery Tap after the arrival of the Taylors. Very soon, everything was spick and span. Young Albert, who went to the old Wesleyan School on Hillside, Dover Road, helped his parents in his spare time. “One of my jobs was to fill the containers of matches and clay pipes on the counters”, he told me. “The matches and pipes were free to customers”. And what about the prices 60 years ago? Proprietary whisky at 2d. a nip or 3s. 6d. a bottle. Whisky drawn from bulk at 1½d. a nip or 2s. 6d. a bottle, beer at 2d. a pint and a packet of cigarettes for a penny.

They were the days when Tontine Street was in its heyday – Folkestone`s principal shopping centre, thronged with people until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. “Very often, after the pub had closed, we used to go out into the street”, Mr. Taylor recalled. “Many of the shops would still be open and doing brisk business”. He can still recall most of the names of the old traders in the street. Only three remain – Palmer, Moody and Stokes. Opposite the Brewery Tap was Gosnold Bros. Drapery emporium, and on the other side of the street Waite`s the confectioners. Then there was Mr. William Hall, the pork butcher, Mr. W.J. Franks, the decorator and plumber, Mr. H.R. Springate, newsagent, Mr. John P. Marsh, draper, Mr. R.G. Wood, the outfitters, and many more in the thriving business thoroughfare.

War brought two breaks in Mr. Taylor`s long association with Tontine Street. In 1917 he joined the Suffolk Regiment and went to France, where he was wounded on the Somme. Invalided out of the Army in 1919, he came back to help his father at the Brewery Tap and in 1922 to marry Miss Ivy Freezer. Mr. Taylor`s second break with the street came in 1941, when the Brewery Tap closed its doors for the duration. “Folkestone, its population down to about 7,000, was almost a ghost town”, he recalled. “Tontine Street, right in the target area for the German long-range guns on the French coast, was an unhealthy place in which to live. Not only did we have to contend with shells but bombs as well. One, which fell in Harvey Street, blew a tree right across Tontine Street and through the roof of the pub. The tree landed on a bed in the front of the house, a few minutes before my father was due to take his afternoon nap”. Shells which fell in Payer`s Park damaged the Brewery Tap. One day Mr. Taylor was walking in Payer`s Park when he found an unexploded bomb under a sheet of corrugated iron. “The bomb was still ticking”, he said. When the pub closed, Mr. And Mrs. Taylor and their family went to lice in Downs Road. He worked for Alfred Olby, the builders` merchant, and served in the Home Guard.

But a day in the life of the old street that will always live in Mr. Taylor`s memory is May 25, 1917. It was a warm evening in late spring. The sun was shining from a cloudless sky as Mr. Taylor and Miss Freezer walked across the fields and under the viaduct towards Mount Pleasant. “I had stopped to have a second cup of tea at my future wife`s parents` home, otherwise I would have reached Tontine Street in time to open the pub at six o`clock”, he recalled. That second cup of tea probably saved Mr. And Mrs. Taylor`s lives. As they walked under the viaduct a score of German aircraft had crossed the coast. Soon Folkestone was to suffer its first daylight raid of the Great War. One bomb fell on the pavement outside Stokes Bros. Greengrocery shop next door to the Brewery Tap. The street was thronged with shoppers. Many from country districts had driven into town on horse and carts. The single bomb killed 63 people and injured 125. “I will never forget the scene”, said Mr. Taylor. The street was filled with dead and dying. Among the bodies of men, women and children were the carcases of horses. The gutters were running with blood. The ghastly scene was lit up by a great sheet of flame from a fractured 18-inch gas main”. When Mr. Taylor reached the Brewery Tap he found a child`s head on the front step. “To this day I can still see the bloodstain on the step”, said Mr. Taylor. “The tiled front of the public house was pitted with shrapnel. The scars are still there to this day”.

Although many people died in the raid by the German Gothas, a number had remarkable escapes. One was P.C. Whittaker, who was left standing when the bomb dropped, and immediately went to the help of the wounded. Councillor John Jones, who was sitting on a chair outside his printing shop, escaped with a shrapnel wound in the leg, while people further up the street were killed. A plaque on a lamp stand­ard outside Stokes’ shop com­memorates the tragedy of that terrible day 49 years ago. “For years afterwards a wreath was always hung on the lamp post on the anniver­sary of the raid and the Sal­vation Army held a service on the spot where the bomb dropped”, recalled Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Taylor has known Tontine Street in prosperity and tragedy. And he has seen the business life of the town move slowly but surely westward away from the old street.

Photo from Folkestone Herald

Folkestone Herald 8-4-1967

Local News

A well-known licensee, Mr. Percy Sidney Taylor, aged 66, died at his home last week.

Mr. Taylor, of 175 Downs Road, lived in Folkestone all his life and until the second world war conducted the Brewery Tap public house in Tontine Street. After the war he bought the Imperial off-licence in Ashley Avenue, Cheriton, where he stayed until he retired. Mr. Taylor leaves a widow, Mrs. Elna Taylor, a son, Mr. Norman Percy Taylor, and a grandson, Barry Taylor.

A funeral service was held at St. John`s Church, Folkestone, on Friday, and cremation at Hawkinge followed.