|
10 Clarence Place (King's Head Street and Crane Street )
Clarence Place, South pier
 |
|
Above shows the King's Head Hotel September 1921. By kind permission
of Dover Library ILL/1531.
|
 |
|
Partington's billposting of advertisements was a once
colourful feature of this corner of the Pier District between Beach
Street, to the left, and Seven Star Street. This Amos photograph, dating
from about 1912, also shows the flank-wall advertising of the old
Terminus Hotel, in Beach Street, one of the posts carrying the overhead
tramway powerlines and part of the ancient King's Head Hotel, in
Clarence Place, on the extreme right. |
Above a view from between the narrow lanes. |
A free house, fully licensed, which stood on the corner
latterly with Lord Warden Square. Its origin lay early in the seventeenth
century. The owners show on maps of 1624 as William and Ann Bradshaw.
Only six stage coaches ran in England in 1672. The
terminus for the Dover run being the "White Hart", in the London borough of
Southwark. (That sign associated with the badge of Richard II but the
building itself taken down in 1889).
It can be said that coaches left this hotel in 1819, at
six and eleven a.m. and four thirty p.m. for the "Golden Cross" at Charing
Cross; the "Black Bear" in Piccadilly; the "Spread Eagle" in Gracechurch
Street and "Blossom's Inn", Lawrence Lane. London. All made the return
journey the same day.
This sold for £3,775 in 1876 and again in 1932 it was on
offer but did not reach the reserve price. By 1934 it belonged to Hays Wharf
and following extensive alterations it was renamed Ferry House, being then
the accommodation of the Continental Express Company who moved here from
Northumberland House in Strond Street.
For better or for worse, a new god called the juggernaut
appeared in the sixties and no person or building was allowed to stand in
its way or hinder the new religion. Continental Express were obliged to
leave the premises in July 1968, the only cafe in the area was
unceremoniously shut down and the demolition of the building commenced in
March 1970. The ground thus gained was then used for the parking of private
cars and the formation of a private road.
Dover Express, 6 March 1970
CRASH, down comes
another part of old Dover as demolition' men move in on Ferry House,
former headquarters or the R.A.C. in Dover on the corner of The Viaduct
and Clarence Place; Part of the block and the first section to come
down, was once The King's Head, said to have been built in the reign of
James I. In an upper room, there was once found a carved panel dated
1624 and bearing the initials of the original landlord and his wife,
William and Ann Bradshaw.
|
|
From the Kentish Gazette, or Canterbury Journal [one title]. April 26 to 29,
1769. Kindly sent from Alec Hasenson.
Advert for the sale by auction of a
Cutter, at the King’s Head, in Dover, on May 2nd.
|
|
In connection with the King’s Head Inn, there is an advert for an
auction of a Messuage there, to be held on September 15, 1796.
From Wikipedia "In law, the term messuage equates to a
dwelling-house and includes outbuildings, orchard, curtilage or
court-yard and garden. At one time messuage supposedly had a more
extensive meaning than that comprised in the word house or site, but
such distinction, if it ever existed, no longer survives."
|
|
Kentish Gazette, May 15-19, 1770. Kindly sent from Alec Hasenson.
Sale of a cargo of Deals at the King’s Head Inn in Dover, on May 24, 1770.
(The term Deals would refer to soft wood, usually Scots Pine, found
in Northern Europe, particularly Scandinavia and Scotland. It is a
commercially important timber used by builders and carpenters for indoor
and outdoor work and was widely used for telegraph poles and railway
sleepers, although obviously not at the time this advert was placed. In
the 16th and 17th centuries, it was a favoured wood for carving and,
until recently, for making boxes for domestic purposes. Paul Skelton).
|
|
From the Kentish Gazette, June 21-25, 1777. Article kindly sent from
Alec Hasenson.
Advert in the Gazette – James Fordred (from the King’s Head, Dover) has
taken the Red Lion at Sittingborn.
|
|
From the Dover Telegraph, 8 August 1840.
Eliza Thomas appeared against
Charles Goodwin, waiter at the King's Head, for an assault.
Complainant acknowledged she first put her hand on defendant on his
refusing to hear her application as to her babe, of which he was the
father, but it was done merely to get his ear. The case was dismissed.
|
|
From the Dover Express. 1859.
An Old Offender.
James Buckley, a tall raw boned Irish vagrant, wearing a tight fitting
shooting jacket and an old foraging cap, and looking a very interesting
type of the “old soldier” was brought up before the Bench for the fourth
time charged with begging and using obscene language at the Kings Head
Hotel, Clarence Place. The prisoner had previously been committed in the
name of Berkley. Edward Killick said the defendant entered the hotel
about 7 o’clock on Saturday evening demanding “nine pence for a nights
lodging.”
Witness refused to entertain the application and told the defendant to
walk out of the house when he commenced using very obscene and abusive
language which he maintained for about 10 minutes during which he
remained in the hall of the hotel at the expiration of that he was given
into custody. The defendant in reply to the charge denied that he had
ever asked the waiter for anything. He went to the hotel because he had
met with a military gentlemen who had taken compassion on him as an old
and disabled soldier and had told him to come to him at the King’s Head
for the price of a dinner and a bed and his fare to Folkestone, the
roads being bad at this time of the year as to make walking without
shoes very uncomfortable. Before he could tell the waiter what he wanted
however he was pushed away from the door and treated like a dog.
It appeared in reply to questions from the magistrates that the
defendant provided with a new pair of shoes on quitting the gaol, where
he had left behind his old ones. According to the defendant’s own
account his old shoes had been “taken away from him” and a pair given to
him in which he could not walk (his feet coming on to swell after he
left the gaol.) and so he sold them. The Mayor said the prisoner was
evidently an incorrigible vagabond. He had already been committed two or
three times for a short term of imprisonment but as these punishments
appeared to have no effect on him he would now be kept to hard labour
for a month.
As the prisoner was leaving the dock Mr. Latham informed him that he
would doubtless find his old shoes still in the gaol, they appeared to
be better adapted for walking than the new ones. He hoped he would make
use of them and walk off as soon as they were given. (Laughter).
Information kindly supplied by Joyce Banks.
More reading of Dover at
www.DoverHistory.co.uk
|
LICENSEE LIST
BRADSHAW William and Anne 1624 (King's Head)
FORDRED James Up to 1777 June
CROW William 1793
PODEVIN Ann 1805-65
     
CHAPLIN William 1828
PODEVIN Ann & Joseph 1840+
PODEVIN Joshua John 1846
PODEVIN Joseph 1853-75 dec'd
BROMLEY John 1876-1919 dec'd
    
BROMLEY Mrs Evangelina E. 1919-33 dec'd
  
RANKINE Andrew 1933
KNOTT Stephen John 1933-4 end, (King's Head)
From the Pigot's Directory 1824
From Batchellor's New Dover Guide 1828
From the Pigot's Directory 1828-9
From the Pigot's Directory 1832-33-34
From the Pigot's Directory 1839
From the Pigot's Directory 1840
From Bagshaw Directory 1847
From Melville's Directory 1858
From the Post Office Directory 1874
From the Post Office Directory 1882
From Pikes Dover Blue Book 1889
From the Post Office Directory 1891
From Pikes Dover Blue Book 1895
From the Kelley's Directory 1899
From Pikes Dover Blue Book 1923
From Pikes Dover Blue Book 1924
From Pikes Dover Blue Book 1932-33
|
