SWAN Pub of Gillingham

DOVER KENT ARCHIVES

Sort file:- Gillingham, August, 2021.

Page Updated:- Monday, 02 August, 2021.

PUB LIST

PUBLIC HOUSES

Paul Skelton

Earliest ????

Swan

Latest ????

Gillingham

Norfolk (Not Kent)

Above photo, date 1913.

I have another "Swan" listed in Chatham, but with no address for this one, do not know whether it is indeed the same.

Having found a pub called the "Swan" and addressed in Gillingham, I assumed that this was in Kent, but can find absolutely no other mention of it at all. Then at the end of July 2021 I received an email from Ashley Gowing who tells me that this is actually in Gillingham, Norfolk and not Kent at all. Ashley goes on to say that the pronunciation of this Gillingham uses the G as is Gilbert, and not as in the Kent name like Jill. However, I will be leaving it here, in case someone else makes the same mistake.

From the Eastern Daily Press, 20 February 2000.

Open-top bus trip that ended in tragedy.

DOWN MEMORY LANE by Colin Chinery

The first bus service from Beccles to Norwich stops outside the old Gillingham Swan. Opposite is the former post office, and the shop at the far end is Martin Boon’s harness-maker’s shop.

The year is unknown, but it pre-dates Lowestoft’s rail link with Norwich, and the bus was operated by the Rail Road Company.

An eventful journey appears to have turned later into tragedy.

As it passed through Loddon, a passenger on the open deck - a sailor - was struck by a barber’s pole with fatal results.

The public house was replaced at the rear in the mid-30s by a new Swan, and this picture was sent in by Samuel Rudd, landlord from 1962 to 1986, now living with his wife in retirement at Mundesley.

"It was a grand old place and grand old village," says Mr Rudd.

LICENSEE LIST

https://www.norfolkpubs.co.uk/norfolkg/gillingham/gillsw.htm

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

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