Mens Club 15th Athletic Sports Programme

Dec 9 1872 saw the opening of a reading room ‘for the free use of working men’ at the Public Hall in the High Street, initiated by the patroness, Mrs Lucy Deane Streatfeild.

By the following year, ‘The Westerham Recreation and Sports Club’ was held there most evenings from 7 until 10 whenever the Hall was free from other events. When it was announced that the Hall was to be purchased by the War Office to become a Drill Hall in the lead-up to the first World War, the Men’s Club faced a search for new premises.

On January 24 1912 in Torquay a funeral took place for Miss Moreton, a former resident of Westerham. Miss Moreton had endowed and had erected, the Moreton Almshouses, and had also given £1000 towards the construction of the ‘Fountain Coffee Tavern and Temperance Hotel’ around 1888.

This Temperance Hotel stood on the south side of the Green, and was popular with cyclists.  In 1905 it was closed and subsequently sold, to become H.J.Hubble and Co’s Wolfe Garage.

The proceeds of the sale went towards a building fund initiated by the Reverend Sydney Le Mesurier for a new home for the Men’s Club. Further working capital was raised on a repayment basis and the clubhouse was built at the entrance to Duncans Yard.