Pavilion Hotel 1970s - 1980s

Folkestone Herald 24-2-1973

Local News

A girl was knocked un­conscious and a member of a pop group had two front teeth knocked out when they were assaulted in a bar, Folke­stone magistrates heard on Monday.

John Friend, aged 20, of Beatty Road, Folkestone, pleaded guilty to assaulting Ian Whitby, occasioning him actual bodily harm. Friend also admitted three other assaults committed on the same occasion in the pavilion bar at the Royal Pavilion, Folkestone. Ian Whitby was a member of a pop group playing at the Pavilion that night. Also assaulted were Steven Robert Whitby, Neil Clinton Buckie, both members of the pop group, and Miss Jacque­line Payne. Friend pleaded guilty to the assaults as well, and to a charge of criminal damage.

Inspector Ronald Young, prosecuting, told the court that the pop group were with two girls, one of them Miss Payne, in the bar, awaiting transport home to Dover. “The accused was in the bar and had been drinking. He first punched Ian Whitby and two other mem­bers of the group, and one of the girls, who was knocked unconscious”. Friend then struck Ian Whitby in the mouth, knock­ing him unconscious and breaking two teeth. Inspector Young said the police were called during the violence and after Friend had hit Ian Whitby unconscious, he ran off. He was found on The Leas and became “extremely violent” towards police officers and was later placed in the detention room at the police station. There he did £22.50 worth of damage to the wooden cover round a radiator and the framework of the door.

Friend said “I had been drinking quite heavily. I went to ask the young lady if I could have a dance, and before she had time to speak one of the lads interrupted and said no. He took a swing at me. I took a swing at him and he got out of the way and the young lady got in the way and she fell on the floor”.

The case was adjourned until March 9 for a probation report.

Folkestone Gazette 14-3-1973

Local News       

Violence flared after Saturday night danc­ing to a pop group called Brainstorm. Punches flew in the Pavilion Bar near Folke­stone harbour, Folkestone magistrates heard on Friday. Three members of the group were taken to hospital. So was a 16-year-old girl who was knocked out in the fight. Cause of the trouble was 20-year-old John Friend, of Beatty Road, Folkestone. And on Friday he paid the penalty – the Magistrates ordered him to Borstal.

Friend had admitted assault occasioning actual bodily hard to three members of the pop group, Ian and Roger Whitby and Neil Buckle, and Jacqueline Payne, one of two girls with the group. He had also pleaded Guilty to causing criminal damage to a detention room at Folkestone Police Station.

Inspector Philip Roberts, prosecuting, said the incident, on February 17, resulted in one of the men losing two teeth, and the two others receiving black eyes. Friend ran off, but was later found on The Leas. He was aggressive to police officers. He was left in a detention room at the police station, where he damaged a wooden radiator cover and a wall.

Friend had been remanded in custody by the court two weeks previously for reports. On Friday, magistrates were told that he had been released from Borstal training last September.

Mr. Thomas Hulme, de­fending, said Friend had been drinking at the time of the incident. He had recognised that he had a drink problem and had made an effort to do some­thing about it.

Friend’s mother said that since returning from Borstal her son had got on well and had worked hard. “I was shocked that night when I heard he was at the police station”, she said.

The presiding Magistrate, Mrs. Dorothy Buttery, told Friend “Due to the serious­ness of the offences we are ordering you to be returned to Borstal”.

Folkestone Herald 10-8-1974

Local News

Warning that he now had a bad reputation was given to a 34-year-old man who appeared before Folkestone magistrates on Monday.

William Daniel Bolland, of Cambridge Gardens, Folke­stone, admitted being drunk and disorderly on Folke­stone sea front on Sunday.

Inspector John Ansell, prosecuting, said the police went to the Royal Pavilion bar in Harbour Approach Road at about 10.35 p.m. Holland, who was in a group of people, started to use “extremely obscene language”. He was told to stop, but continued to use it. “It got stronger and stronger”, said Inspector Ansell. Bolland was arrested and charged.

The court was told he had two previous convictions for being drunk and disorderly. Fining him £10, the pre­siding magistrate, Mr. John Moncrieff, said “You realise now that you have become well-known?”

Bolland, who said he worked as a builder’s labourer, agreed.

Folkestone Herald 11-2-1978

Except from “Front Line Folkestone” article.

There was a lucky escape for the Royal Pavilion Hotel, Folkestone, during one of many raids on the town in September, 1940. The hotel escaped destruc­tion because a 1,000 lb bomb, dropped from roof-top height by a Ju.88, did not explode. The bomb hit the roadway and then went through a window into the basement of the hotel before coming to rest on a shelf where carpets were stored. A bomb disposal officer, using a doctor’s stetho­scope, found that the bomb was ticking when he examined it.

Folkestone Herald 16-6-1979

Local News

The demolition of Folke­stone's dilapidated Royal Pavilion Hotel and the re-housing of its tenants in the adjacent Pavilion Court flats has come a big jump nearer.

Shepway District Council's Health and Housing Committee accepted on Monday the District Valuer's negotia­tions and price for acquiring Pavilion Court. This followed the committee`s deci­sion last February to "immediately and urgently” open negotiations for the flats.

Referring at Monday’s meeting to an estimate of £51,000 to correct de­fects in the 100 flat complex, the treasurer, Mr. Arthur Ruderman, said that £75,000 would be more realistic. The negotiations with the owner, Mr. Motel Burstin, were on the basis that the council should pay sitting tenant value, although 40 flats were vacant. “I think the council needs to grasp this nettle and decide on the broader issues”, said Mr. Ruderman. “I don’t think anybody would deny that conditions in the Royal Pavilion are deplorable". “It might well be that, in taking this action, the council would be helping the owner out of a difficult position”, the treasurer added. But if it were not taken, nothing was likely to be done for the people in the Royal Pavilion.

Asked if there was any way the council could force the owner to “bulldoze this place down”, the chair­man, Councillor Will Harris, said a condition of the contract would be that money would be withheld unless this were done. "We don't want him to get this money - and I would say this to his face - and then find we are still faced with the problem”, said the chairman. The 37 tenants would be re-housed “directly or in­directly." If any of them were housed elsewhere, their empty flats would be avail­able for others.

South Kent Gazette 22-8-1979

Local News

When Folkestone’s Royal Pavilion Hotel was sold to property tycoon Motel Burstin it was hailed as “splendid news” for the town. That was in April 1960. The early Vic­torian building had lain empty since the War Office gave up possession 15 years before. Today, after a public outcry over living conditions for elderly tenants of flats at the former hotel, Shepway District Council is preparing to buy up the adjacent Pavilion Court annex so that the Royal can be demolished.

Household Works - a little-known essay by Charles Dickens published in 1855 - gave the watering hole of the well-to-do rave reviews. It was, said Dickens, the epitome of good catering standards, having been built in 1843 to an "unpretending” design by Mr. W. Cubitt. And its importance to the developing port impressed him so much that he referred to the town throughout as Pavilionstone! A century later Folkestone’s pride and glory has deteriorated into a dilapidated slum Formerly owned by Frederick Hotels Ltd., the building was closed after the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. Later it was occupied by the Royal Navy and towards the end of hostilities the Army used it for leave troops. Its last wartime role was as a mar­ried families` hostel.

With the takeover in 1960, Polish-born Mr. Burstin promised a major overhaul of the Royal and its speedy conversion into flatlets. But as a success story it was short-lived. The town’s oldest large hotel, and the first to be lit by electricity, deteriorated into one of its worst slums. The rise of the Motel Burstin hotel in 1974 brought a rapid decline to the Royal. For his 250-room harbour complex, Mr. Burstin envisaged a future as one of the biggest conference centres in Europe. But the 650-room extension would come at the expense of the old hotel. “We hope to have 30,000 conference dele­gates in Folkestone by 1977. It is our mini­mum figure”, he said at the time. However, speculation never took concrete form and after the remaining wings of the Royal were overshadowed by the massive new edifice, conditions in the Royal deteriorated.

Early in 1969 the old ballroom had been closed down. Mr. Burstin described it as “a victim of the changing times”. Another disappointment struck four years later. Old Folkestonians had remembered that 800 books of gold leaf were used to gild ornamental domes in 1909.

Unfortunately, they had been camou­flaged at the outbreak of war. The cost of recovering the precious metal would have been more than it was worth.

Teething troubles at the motel had created problems for the parent company – Mount Liell Court Ltd. – of which Mr. Burstin is a director. Lack of safety precautions on the un­completed site had already cost Folkestone Construction Ltd. £800 in fines. A year later - November 1975 - Mount Liell was fined £980 by the town’s magistrates after the company was convicted on 22 summonses alleging insanitary conditions at the hotel - which still had kitchens in the Royal Pavilion. Elderly tenants complained of rain coming through the roof, stuck and broken windows, violent attacks by intruders, too few staff and no milk deliveries. Vandals and thieves rampaged through the crumbling corridors - terrorising old folk living alone. They also had to put up with a “firebug” terror.

By September 1975, millionaire Mr. Burstin admitted the Royal was no longer a haven. Faced with a barrage of complaints from residents, he said “Those who don’t like it and feel so bitter, should move”.

Armed intruders bludgeoned a night-watchman unconscious in 1976. He was sacked shortly afterwards for taking a week­end off sick. Just over two years ago the professed socialist announced that the 130-year-old Royal was to be demolished in favour of the long-awaited Burstin extension. More than 80 occupants would be given a choice of moving to other properties owned by the company at Southend, Bexhill, Hast­ings and the nearby Pavilion Court, he said. At that time he was replying to an attack by Hastings Council, which had accused him of deliberately letting four sea-front build­ings, housing nearly 100 elderly people, be­come run down. He replied that he had been hit hard by the economic recession. There were no money problems in Folke­stone and his £10 million scheme would start in nine months and be completed with­in three years, Mr. Burstin claimed.

To date it has not materialised and in February this year - under pressure from the housing action group, Shelter - the former Southend councillor admitted: “Things are bad at the Royal Pavilion flats”. Speaking to Folkestone Junior Chamber of Commerce, he said candidly “I wouldn’t put my own mother up at the Royal Pavilion”.

Unharmed when a “dud” 2,000 pound bomb fell into a basement during the war, the once-glorious hotel is now under sentence of death.

Shepway District Council has been given the go-ahead to take over and improve the 100-flat Pavilion Court by the Department of the Environment. Now all that remains is for financial ar­rangements to be settled so that rehoused tenants officially come under local authority care. Before the affair is dead and buried, the Royal Pavilion must be razed to the ground.

Folkestone Herald 19-1-1980

Local News

Demolition workers have started to knock down a notorious Folkestone seaside slum. In the next four months a ten-man crew will gut the building and finally raze it to the ground. And owner, Mr. Motel Burstin, said this week he will use the site to extend the existing motel. Shelter, the housing action group, branded Pavilion Court “a seaside slum”. Backed by former Folkestone parish curate, the Rev. Tony Shepherd, members campaigned to have it knocked down.

Old folk complained of damp, unhealthy conditions. They were prey to vandals, muggers and firebugs. Then Shepway District Council stepped in and agreed to buy Pavilion Court from Mr. Burstin, who agreed to demolish the Royal Pavilion. The Council said it would turn the Court into sheltered homes for old people.

Mr. Burstin said on Wednesday “I intend to build the approved extensions to the existing motel on the site. These include kitchens and restaurants. When the complex is finished I hope to be able to accommodate about 1,400 people. The sooner the Royal Pavilion is down the better. It can only be in the interests of the remaining residents”.

Mr. John Gluntz, deputy controller of Shepway District Council`s Technical and Planning Services Department, said the Council has no details of Mr. Burstin`s plans. “We would like to see what he has in mind”, he said. “We`re glad to see the Royal Pavilion go down, but we would be interested to see his ideas for development”.

Photo from Folkestone Herald