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Picture source: Steve Schmid

The Railway Bell was situated at 209 Dover Road, closing in July 2008.

My late uncle, Harold Knight, was a plasterer by trade, and during the Second World War, he was often involved in the repair of buildings which had been damaged by enemy action. On one occasion, he was called to the “Railway bell” which had been hit by a German attack. As Harold picked through the wreckage of the demolished pub, he found one of the 1-gallon brass beer jugs in which beer used to be served to table guests. It had been partly crushed by falling debris. Harold took it home, filled it with wet sand, and found a round-section fence post of the same diameter as the jug, and sawed the point off. He then gently hammered the fence-post down into the wet sand, so that the pressure generated gradually “pushed out” the crumpled sections. The result was not “as new” but it is an interesting piece of Folkestone history. I now have it in my house in Canada.

Alan Knight (June 2020)

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