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Club Room...
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More photos of our Club Room coming soon
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Our Club Room provides a great
night out to
celebrate occasions with friends & family
or just for fun - and it costs less than you might think! See right for details on hiring our
Club Room in Alton, North East Hampshire.
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| Our Club Room is available for private hire. |
| Room hire including equipment from £30.00*
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Alternatively the Club Room may be
hired
without food for £75.00*
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* Please note:
Bookings must be made a minimum of one week in advance. All
Club Room bookings require a £30 non-refundable deposit in
advance to secure the booking, which will be used in the event of damages.
Full balance to be paid on the
night.
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History of the Club Room...
The first detailed OS map of our area was surveyed in 1870 and this shows that there was no building where the present wooden building is at the French Horn.
Seven years later, the Hampshire Chronicle reported that ‘Annual meeting of the Chawton Friendly Society otherwise known as the Smock Frock Club, took place at the French Horn, but about 100 sat down to dinner in the club room.’ This Club Room was the wooden, white-painted building to the south of the pub which used by several local clubs.
Cricket was played on The Butts and there was even an Alton Butt’s Cricket Club. Another game that had become very popular in the 1880s was quoits. Again there was a local club - the Alton Butts Quoits Club! On February 22nd, 1886, they held a meeting at the French Horn even though the pub was still in the parish of Chawton not Alton. There was also an Alton Quoits Club that met at the Red Lion and another team that met at the Windmill (up Windmill Hill). In 1932, Mrs Childs, of Alton, said she could remember a skittle alley at the French Horn about 50 years before [i.e. in 1882] but no other mention of it has yet been found.
Maybe it was all this sporting activity that had prompted the building of the extra room at the French Horn. On Tuesday 18 May 1880, the anniversary of the society, familiarly known as the Butts Club, was held. The members assembled at 9.30 a.m. at the French Horn Inn, where, in the ‘convenient club-room’, the annual meeting was held.
In 1910, the building appeared on an OS map and, four years later, the ‘Inland Revenue Survey’ described French Horn as being occupied by Hilda Steer (who became Hilda Seward), owned by Courage and Co and consisting of:-
‘Brick and tile. Bar parlour, tap room, kitchen, scullery, beer cellar and outhouse, 3 bedrooms and attic. Roof poor.
Brick timber and tile Clubroom 37 ft long and iron shed.
Brick and tile coal and wood house and 4 stall stable
Timber and slated workshop and coach house. Chicken house.’
Several other local pubs had club rooms and both the White Hart and the Prince of Wales in Holybourne had them as well. Some of the public houses also had Slate Clubs into which members paid regular amounts and then there were pay outs, with interest, in times of sickness or at Christmas. They would also have needed a place to hold their meetings.
There is a story that the Club Room at the French Horn was built as a cricket pavilion but the evidence is that it may have been used for that purpose but this was not its primary function. There was so much other activity in the area that it must always have been used in the same way that it is today - by any group that needed a place to meet which had refreshments on hand. The hinged arrangement on the wall nearest The Butts suggests that it could have been used as a pavilion but also as a place to serve from in the summer - in the early 1900s cycling was very popular and groups of riders would set out for the day and then need to stop for drinks. Even Farringdon boasted Tea Rooms and Four Marks had several lining the road. It would seem then that the French Horn Club Room has served the local community for over 100 years.
History of the Club Room © Jane Hurst, 82, The Butts, Alton, Hampshire. GU34 1RD. 01420 86701
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