DOVER KENT ARCHIVES

Sort file:- Tenterden, January, 2024.

Page Updated:- Thursday, 25 January, 2024.

PUB LIST PUBLIC HOUSES Paul Skelton

Earliest 1880+

(Name from)

Ye Olde Cellars

Closed 1986

2 High Street

Tenterden

Ye Olde Cellars

Above photo, date unknown.

Ye Olds Cellars

Above photo, date unknown.

Ye Olde Cellars inside

Above photo showing the inside of the pub, date unknown. Information from Chris Houghton says the pieces of paper hanging on the walls were all bank notes, many from the WW2 era.

Ye Olde Cellars inside 1950

Above photo, circa 1950.

Ye Olde Cellars 1950

Above postcard circa 1950, kindly sent by Rory Kehoe.

Ye Olde Cellars inside

Above photo, date unknown, kindly sent by Mark Farrow.

Ye Olde Cellars

Above photo, date unknown, kindly sent by Stephen Starbuck.

Ye Olde Cellars 1934

Above photo showing KM veteran car rally passing, circa 1934, kindly sent by Roger Smoothly. Archivist at www.kentphotoarchive.com

Ye Olds Cellars 1982

Above photo, 1982, kindly sent by Mark Farrow.

Ye Olde Cellars 2010

Above Google image, October 2010.

 

It started life as wine cellars in 1700 for Avery, the wine merchant, and remained in the family for over 200 years.  The dinking saloon was opened in the 1880s I believe at the time it was known as the "Greyhound" in its underground site. Then called  the "Olde Cellars" it was closed in 1986. It is now Boardroom a sports retail shop (2015.)

 

Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate & Cheriton Herald 12 June 1926.

By order of the Executors of the Will of J. S. Winser, dec'd. Tenterden, Kent.

Banks and Son, Will sell by auction at the "White Lion Hotel," Tenterden, on Wednesday next, 16th June 1926, at 3 o'clock p.m., that valuable and well-known Freehold Fully Licensed Property known as "Ye Olde Cellars," Tenterden.

 

Yass Tribune-Courier, Monday 3 April, 1939.

COBWEBS LEFT UNTOUCHED.

Public House In Kent.

In the High Street of the little town of Tenterden, in the Weald of Kent, is an underground public-house where they have not brushed the cobwebs down for 50 years, states the London "Evening Standard."

Cobwebs festoon the lamp brackets, drape hundreds of old bottles' in a dusty mesh, and make a curtain between the rafters.

The only cleaning they do at "Ye Olde Cellars" is to sweep and sawdust the floor every morning and dust the beer barrels and wine casks the customers use for seats. Barrels and casks serve as tables, too. There is no bar.

Pinned to the rafters are thousands of visiting cards, old envelopes, postcards and letters.

This is just an old custom of "Ye Olde Cellars. Years ago someone started it, and it has just gone on. No one is ever asked to leave his card, but if anyone wants to do it the landlord, Mr. Edgar Mittell, will give him a drawing-pin with which to perform the rite.

 

Sussex Agricultural Express 03 June 1949.

YE OLDE CELLARS TENTERDEN.

As from June 5th this well-known old Kent Inn will be open
on Sundays.

Fully Licensed. Fremlins Elephant Brand Ales and Stouts.

 

Kentish Express - Friday 22 August 1980.

No cobwebs in the old cellars now.

It's enough to make the long departed bucolic characters who were once regular patrons of a below ground bar turn in their graves.

"Ye Old Cellars" at Tenterden has gone all posh. Not a single cobweb or a speck of dust after be found. Sawdust on the floor? That's gone, too.

The famous lower bar were farmers and their men in rough country clothes and boots used to meet, is now the ancient pub's saloon and restaurant.

A big effort has been made to preserve the original atmosphere. Most of the barrels and old bottles, minus the dust, remain.

Present regulars, forewarned of impending changes at the end of last year, have accepted the new look philosophically.

"I think it is very nice," said Arthur Goldsmith. Arthur, 80, a retired master baker, has been using the bar for the last 57 years.

George Pay, a retired building work at, was not fuzzy. "As long as I can still get a drink there I'm not worried," he declared.

Harry Brunger, 81, of Hales Close, Tenterden, also approved of the clean-up. His only complaint was that the bar was too dark.

John Sanserson 1980

John Sanderson, who took over the inn with his wife Sheila last November, said about one-third of the bar space was now devoted to the restaurant.

John (in picture) is pleased with his first weekend at "Ye Old Cellars Mark 2." "There was a marvellous response," he said. "We were packed out on Saturday night.

 

 

LICENSEE LIST

MITTELL Edgar 1939+

SANDERSON John & Sheila 1980+

 

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

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