Gravesend’s Lost Pubs: Ascot Arms

The Ascot Arms (formerly the Central Hotel)

The Ascot Arms is the latest of Gravesend’s pubs to close, finally shutting its doors early in 2018. The brewery has advertised for new tenants, but it seems more likely it’ll be turned into yet another convenience store, or demolished and the land used for housing.

The Ascot Arms started life as the Central Avenue Hotel, opening in 1932. It’s a huge rambling place, so it’s hardly surprising the latest landlord struggled to keep it open.

A Pub on Every Corner

The Public House, the pub, along with the church, was once at the centre of every English community. In my parents’ generation, most men, and sometimes women, would have ‘a local’. The local was a place to go and chat with friends about their lives, their troubles, or at least how poorly their football team were playing that week.

Yes, they sold beer, but mostly they were about community. Where I grew up, in south-east London, they generally served a very small clientele. That might only be the residents of two or three streets.

Most of their regulars knew each other; they knew their partners, parents and their children. It was a very local thing. Further up the road would be another local with its own regulars and another separate, distinct community. There were literally almost pubs on every corner.

Over the last 25 years, maybe more, that’s changed. In Gravesend, since the turn of the century, 24 pubs have closed (as of 2018). Granted, Gravesend started with more than its fair share of pubs. Being an old port on the Thames meant a lot of sailors, travellers and drinkers! Nevertheless, the attrition rate is shocking.

This is part of an ongoing project.

The Ascot Arms on the Dover Kent Archive.

Update

August 2026: the Ascot Arms was demolished in 2023 to make way for a care home, which opened in 2025.

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