Pubs continue to close at an alarming rate. Jan Hunter charts the rise and fall of her local, which was born in the railway age but succumbed to the post-pub age last year

IN 1808, author William Hutton in his Trip to Coatham described Stokesley as “a centre for learning and liquor”. The town still does learning well, but its liquor reputation is waning – certainly it cannot compete with the days when it had 17 pubs plus more breweries, beer retailers, wine merchants and social clubs.

One of those pubs was beside the station. The railway had come to Stokesley in March 1857 – the Picton to Battersby line – and when farmers opened an auction mart beside it, Mr Hodgson, a haulier, decided to turn his premises adjacent to the station into an inn. Hence, the Station Hotel was born.

The brewing company, Camerons, soon bought the hotel, and by 1866, the inn was where carriers and cabs waited to take passengers into the town centre. In those days, the Station Hotel had a lounge to the right, a bar to the left and a snug to the rear. The gents toilets were in converted stables in the back yard and even in 2015, before the pub closed, gentlemen had to venture outside in all weathers to answer the call of nature.

The first landlord was William Dobbin, and the last Jim Briggs, who still lives in the town. In the pub’s 150 years, there were also three landladies: Emma Brown 1903-1910, Rachel A Brown 1931-1933 and Sylvia Joy Allen, 1964-1966.

There was scandal in the hotel in 1867 when William King was arrested there for forging a promissory note, and there was even a modicum of fame: in 1952, British Transport Films made a delightful short called Farmer Moves South in which a Stokesley farmer moves his entire farm to Sussex, and the hotel can be seen.

In 1954, the railway closed to passengers and in 1965 to goods traffic, and the changes began. Nowadays, the Station House is home to a firm of architects and the goods shed and food store have been taken over by Jewson’s builders’ merchants. The signal box was moved to a garden across the road, but the Station Hotel remained where it was, and even though its railway had gone, it was brought to life by landlord Jim Briggs and his family. They held legendary rhythm and blues nights on a Thursday, and folk nights on a Sunday.

Folk musician Steve Lane recalls: “Jim was always very supportive of live music and ensured a warm welcome. In winter, the welcome from the roaring fire could be so warm people strived to sit well away from it. These days it is difficult to find a pub with a separate room but the one at the Station was just the right size for acoustic music and the folk club never needed the amplification that several other genres used as a matter of course."

Thursday nights at the Station were not to be missed. Bands would travel from all over the region and the audience would flock from as far away as Leeds and Manchester to pack the place to the gills.

The band room was at the back of the pub, and in the days when smoking was allowed in pubs, a fog of smoke would greet you as you pushed open the door. If you were late, you had to struggle through a wall of bodies propping up the bar and the wall, and there were people packed around small candle-lit tables, and perched on stools or red plastic benches.

It was difficult to imagine you were in Stokesley when the music began. Snake Davies, Dave Dryden and Winston Blissett played there. They were professional session musicians who had played with some of the most famous names in the business. Bands such as the Pete Gilgan Band, Stork Club, PAF, Stevie and the Business, DVD and Hamps Tramps were regulars, as was the late Jim Diamond. Harry “the spoons” Peacock would join in, if he was in that night, and if you won the chocolates in the raffle, they were handed round to each table until they were gone.

Sounds of Free, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, Thin Lizzie, Jimi Hendrix and so many more of the rock legends would pulsate out into the atmosphere across the site of the old railway station.

But in 2014, Jim decided to call it a day. Musician Pete Gilgan says: “I played many gigs at the Station over the years – and they were usually exciting and vibrant evenings. In fact, for many local bands, those Thursday evenings were a good regular gig where experimentation could take place, as the audience was there to listen to the music – unlike an ordinary pub where the band was just an 'extra'.

“There really isn't anything like it locally any longer as far as I know. It was there for the music lovers!

“It was indeed a sad day when it closed.”

So the Station was born when the railway was king and it survived all the fads and fashions of 150 years. Now, the music is silent and the craic in the snug is no more.

But the buildings survive. In January 2015, they were sold. The hotel and bars have been refurbished as offices, and where the bands once played is now a fusion café, its theme based on a famous hill railway station in India.

Across the country, 20,000 pubs have closed since 1980, and they are still shutting at the rate of 29 a week. Boarded-up or converted pubs are now part of the British landscape. Once they were central to their community, where people met, drank, danced, sang and celebrated together, but now they stand empty and unloved. It’s hard not to feel that communities have lost something central to their lives.