DOVER KENT ARCHIVES

Sort file:- Gillingham, March, 2022.

Page Updated:- Monday, 14 March, 2022.

PUB LIST PUBLIC HOUSES Paul Skelton

Earliest 1870

Mulberry Tree

Closed 1973

Lower Rainham Road

Grange

Gillingham

Mulberry Tree 1905

Above photo 1905.

Mullyberry Tree 2011

Above photo 2011, from www.Flickr.com by Ben Levick.

Mulberry Tree sign 1073

Above sign till closure in 1973.

Mulberry Tree design

Michael Nancollas says the following:- Not many years ago the latest resident painted the end wall black and put this metal mulberry tree on the end wall.

It really sets off the otherwise blank space on the Gable end of the building.

Mulberry Tree motif

 

According to the Chatham news the premises gained its license on the 27th August, 1870.

It was situated on the Lower Rainham Road between Featherby and Shorts Lane.

 

Information below by Ben Levick

The "Mulberry Tree" beer house opened before 1872, and got its name from a Mulberry Tree that grew in the garden. It was probably built to serve men building forts in the area. Before the sea-wall was built on the nearby river-bank the pub often flooded at spring tides. When it closed in 1973 it was the last beer-house in the area.

 

Chatham News 27 August 1870.

Beer House Licenses

The following beer licences were granted "Mulberry Tree," Grange.

 

Hastings and St Leonards Observer, Saturday 25 March 1933.

Licensing Anomaly. Why two public houses will keep open later.

Two public houses in Gillingham, Kent, will open until 10:30 p.m. During the summer months in spite of the fact that the Chatham Licensing Magistrates, whose area includes Gillingham, have refused any local extension.

The reason is that these two hostelries, the "Hastings Arms" and the "Mulberry Tree," come under the jurisdiction of the Hastings justices, who have sanctioned the extra half hour.

The result is a licensing anomaly that has no parallel elsewhere in the country. While the other public houses of Gillingham will be closed and shuttered, the "Hastings Arms" and the "Mulberry Tree" will be reaping in rich harvest.

And it is all because of the time, centuries ago, when Hastings acquired the "Manor and Grange neare Jelingham" as a limb of the Cinque Port of Hastings.

 

 

LICENSEE LIST

MANSER Elizabeth S 27/Aug/1870-71+ (also grocer and baker age 28 in 1871Census)

WOOD William 1881+ (also Grocer age 37 in 1881Census)

NORWOOD James 1901-11+ (died 1914)

THORLBY Albert Edward 1930-38+

SUMMERS Frederick L 1939+

MISSING M E Mrs 1967+

https://pubwiki.co.uk/MulberryTree.shtml

http://www.closedpubs.co.uk/mulberrytree.html

 

CensusCensus

 

If anyone should have any further information, or indeed any pictures or photographs of the above licensed premises, please email:-

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