Carlton Hotel

A Memory of Newmarket.

Stationed at a nearby American Air Force base, I visited Newmarket frequently.  My favourite pub was in the Carlton Hotel.  I remember the murals between the front and back bars.  I preferred the back bar.  I and several other airmen took ballroom dance lessons upstairs in the Carlton.  Sadly, I never mastered those.  I had spent so many evenings in the Carlton, that when I left the UK the proprietors - Alf (Greene?) "the guvnor" and Taffy (yes, he was Welsh) gave me a box of gifts.  They included ashtrays, Watney's World Cup Ale bar towels, a dozen pint mugs and a dozen half-pint mugs, some Guinness signs, two large red Watney's barrel beer pumps, and two electrified antique carriage lamps from a number that graced the walls of the front bar, and two devices of brass that clamped to the back bar.  They were like a rocking chair rocker with a turn screw and brass turn wheel below.  The wooden barrels sat on a block of wood at the back and on this device at the front.  Turning the wheel lowered the front of the barrel so that the beer would flow out.  They gave me a brass faucet that fit the wooden barrel and the wood mallet that was used to drive the faucet through the wooden plug and into the barrel.  I still have most all of that.  Thought I would display them, but never have.  The Newmarket years were wonderful times with wonderful people.  I shall treasure them always.