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Home > Kent >
Maidstone > Fortune Of War
Fortune Of War
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Picture source: Stephen Harris |
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The Fortune Of War was situated at 126 Upper
Stone Street. This pub is now in private residential use. |
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My mum and dad, Pat and Peter Pearson, were
licensees of the Fortune of War for 25 years – the longest serving publicans
in Maidstone at the time. I lived there with them and my two younger
brothers Phillip and Ashley. They eventually retired from the licensing
trade in about 1990 when the brewery sold the pub to a private buyer, who
then turned it into bedsits.
I have some good memories of the pub back in the 1970s and 80s, with my dad
running the Maidstone & District Pool League. He also had a gents and ladies
darts team, a quiz team, a shove ha’penny team and a sea angling club at one
point!! He gained a lot of his trade from providing outside bars at
weddings, parties etc. Some weekends he had about four or five outside bars
on the go, along with the running of the pub, so life was pretty busy for
him and mum.
Trade started to become less profitable with Whitbread brewery raising the
rent to such an extreme that it was a struggle to make a profit, along with
the fact that, come the 1990s, it became too expensive for people to spend
as much time as they used to socialising and drinking in the pub. It was
very much a working man’s pub, so did not have the added benefit of also
providing restaurant facilities!
Anyhow, mum and dad are obviously now retired and living in Coxheath. They
are still in touch with many of the loyal customers who also became good
friends to them over the years. |
Paula Wilkinson (October 2011) |
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I grew up in Tovil (Courtenay Rd near the
shops), and The fortune of War was either the first pub on the way to Town
or the last one visited on the way home. I was suppressed when it was closed
down and turned in to bedsits. |
Derek Lamming (November 2012) |
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Contacts |
Make email contact with other ex-customers and landlords of this pub by adding your details to this page. |
Name |
Dates |
Comments |
Kevin Mitchell |
1960s |
My parents were tenant landlords back then we're there
for a few years I have good memories of the pub and made some good
friends .I was aged about sixteen then I'm now 66. We moved up to Fulham
after we left Maidstone to run an off License for a few years before we
moved back to Ramsgate |
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