A 150-year-old pub has been saved from extinction after its barman took over running the venue, which is one of its neighbourhood’s last remaining drinking spots.
The Priory Hotel in Dover, which was built in Victorian times, was closed for just 20 days earlier this year while the business changed hands.
It will be the only pub left in the eastern Folkestone Road area when a second one nearby closes later this year.
Now at the helm of The Priory, located next to Dover Priory station, is bar manager Andy King, who told KentOnline: “Keeping this pub is important for the local community and for music fans.
“We will be the only pub in this immediate area and one of the few music venues in Dover.
“We’re not going to change it, except for some refurbishment.
“We are obviously going to keep it as a live music venue because that has been a success. Now we are more certain about its future, I have booked bands until the end of March.”
On January 6, the pub at Priory Station Approach Road announced that it would close once the beer ran dry.
That happened on January 10, but it reopened under Mr King’s management on January 30.
It could have been yet another casualty of the declining British pub trade, with venues constantly closing nationwide.
Mr King said: “It was happening before the pandemic, but it became worse after that because people got so used to buying alcohol from supermarkets and drinking at home.”
Once The Malvern Inn, located up the hill in Clarendon Road, the Priory Hotel will be the only pub in the area along Folkestone Road and its side-street communities between the York Street roundabout and the tram shelter at the Elms Vale Road junction.
The only pubs left immediately west of that are the Crown and Sceptre in Elms Vale Road and the Boar’s Head in Eaton Road.
Gone are the five pubs in the area that thrived up to the turn of the millennium, four of which were directly on Folkestone Road: the Alma, Engineer, Captain Webbs and Orange Tree.
The Orange Tree closed exactly 20 years ago in February 2006, while the Engineer shut in 2007, and The Alma – later known as The Renaissance – demised in 2009.
Captain Webbs pub was opened as an addition to the then Webbs Hotel in 1989 and was demolished after 17 years.
The fifth pub, the Westbury up the hill on Westbury Road, shut in 2005.
The Malvern at Clarendon Road, which went on the market last summer, now has a buyer and is expected to close in a couple of months.
Mr King said: “I have a lot of customers from the Clarendon and Westbury estates, so I can provide a place for Malvern customers when that closes.”
The Priory Hotel has live music on Friday and Saturday nights but is closed at 8pm from Mondays to Thursdays and all day on Sundays.
Surprisingly, despite being across the road from Dover Priory station, Mr King says it does not get many rail passengers using it.
Mr King said: “Some people think because I’m next to the station I’m in a goldmine.
“But only a few might come in for a drink just before they catch their train. A lot take the train for a night out in Canterbury, although in the summer we get a lot more customers.
“We are close to the town centre but not directly on it, so we don’t get that much passing trade.
“We have the problem of a lot of competition from Wetherspoons pubs, where the beer is cheaper and they own their own premises so they have no overheads.”
Every pub landlord’s nightmare is fights erupting on their premises, but Mr King says this pub is usually trouble-free.
He said: “We don’t get crowds of drunks coming in. Occasionally, you get some idiot who has come off the train, but you are able to talk him down.”
The Priory Hotel was built by 1876 and had its first landlord the following year.
It has 10 bedrooms, which are now to be refurbished.
It is owned by the Stonegate Group, now the largest pub company in the UK, with more than 4,500 premises.
Mr King’s predecessor was Eric Alton, the premises’ licensee and lessee. He retired last month on health grounds and has returned to his hometown of Hartlepool.
He had been in charge of the pub for 15 years – as long as Mr King’s time there as a barman.
Mr King is 61, widowed and has no children.
He is originally from the Borstal area of Rochester and moved to Dover in 2011 to work at the Priory.
