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Picture source: Trevor Mathieson

The Croft was situated on Langdown Lawn. This pub closed in 2013 and has now been converted to a Tesco Express.

This pub has some history in my family my father used to go drinking there back in the early 1970s. I seem to remember it being referred to as a "bikers pub" if that was the case it was long before I started drinking there. I seem to recall it went through a referb in the 1980s and it was the first time I’d seen sofas in a pub. I think it was the first pub I saw a case machine as well. Meals were pretty good there as well in fact we were planning on going there in 2013 when we visited a friend still living in Hythe just as the pub shut down.

Carl Jackson (May 2017)

Back in the 1970s The Croft was the first pub I drank in, like many others it was before we were of legal age. The landlord was I think Barry, and used to turn a blind eye providing we didn’t cause any trouble. When I first knew it the pub had three bars. The Pubic bar was at the front straight through the doors seen in the photograph. That had traditional copper topped tables, jukebox and dart board. Go round the side to the left and there was the entrance to the Lounge bar and the Snug. The chairs in the Lounge were more comfortable than those in the Public, but the prices a few pence higher. The Snug was a tiny bar with just two or three tables and no music. It started to lose its atmosphere when it was “modernised” in the late 70s or early 80s. The dividing walls between the bars were all knocked down to provide one big space.

Martin Honor (October 2020)

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