Saturday 30 March 2013

The Hovelling Boat Inn reopens in Ramsgate

 After being closed for 104 years The Hovelling Boat Inn, 12 York St, Ramsgate has reopened as an Ale and Cider House with no music, TVs or games machines.
 Ale and Cider straight from the barrel in a relaxed and friendly setting wine and soft drinks are also available but no spirits.


picture of The Hovelling Boat from Ramsgate Remembered website

29 comments:

  1. "After being closed for 104" what? Days? Years?

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    1. Sorry Peter my bookshop has been busy today and I have only just got around to checking the cut and paste of everyday strife, I have now corrected the omission.

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  2. I can't imagine why Michael feels the need to respond to such a stupid posting. Does Peter Checksfield have nothing better to do with his time? Presumably it's too cold for any more naive bimbos to take their kit off for him.

    As for the original posting, I think it's marvellous. All over the country pubs are closing. In Thanet we are opening new ones and they're little gems. Both the Conqueror and the Hovelling Boat are a little slice of history and people are coming from all over the place to visit them. As usual, the thing which is promoting tourism and prosperity in the town is something the council didn't spot and didn't support.

    Taking this a step further, I think it's high time the council abandoned it's role in regeneration. It's been going on for a long time now and I think there's enough evidence to say that the council always backs the wrong horse. They have no track record of success and there is no evidence that they make effective use of public money. In my opinion, the council's role in regeneration should be restricted to controlling inappropriate development via the planning system and minimising the obstacles to real entrepreneurs. Lert's get the council out of the way. Hmmm.....could be an election slogan.

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    1. Interesting point on regeneration: TDC does have a terrible record whether it's Manston, WC, ChinaGate - and more worryingly even basic services such as street lights etc etc.

      TDC's current budget is £60M and c.3-5% tax increases most years and c.750 staff (upto c.£120k salaries) and in the bottom 10% of all 440 UK councils. What would the reduced/improved version be?

      And with KCC elections in a month and Ramsgate Mayor and RTC seats we have 8 KCC councillors (many also the District and Towns too) - who did what in terms of accountablilty to date and what are their policies?

      With rampant corruption and waste it looks like they're a busted flush and simpy relying on being re-elected by keeping their head down. Who are the worst of the 8 KCC councillors?

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  3. Not stupid at all. I really didn't have a clue what Michael was referring to, and at a guess I would've assumed 104 days. So there!

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  4. I like the references to Tomson and Wotton that is a nice little touch that gives the building that badge of authenticity.

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  5. Anon is obviously drunk Peter!

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    1. Not as drunk as the fools who keep going on about Driver doing anything other than promote himself. Who would have thought that Michael would be taken in by such a clown.

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    2. Not everyone can do as much as you anon (presumably anonymously)...

      What has the pub been during the intervening 104 years? Presumably not just a boarded up building.

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  6. I am intriqued aswell, what has the Hovelling Boat been doing for the last 104 years? I assume it once occupied the same location?

    Anon, your attack on Peter was unwarranted, I had no idea that Michael meant 104 years either, but you are clearly correct about the chancer Driver.

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  7. Has Hamilton ever posted anything anywhere that wasn't an attack on Ian Driver? I think not. His whole blog is devoted to it. What I find amazing is why he spends so much time waging this pathetic vendetta against someone who is entertaining and pretty harmless. I'd understand it if the man was the devil incarnate, but he isn't.

    As for the "attack" on Peter Checksfield, I think it's predictable that the arrogant little clique who infest all of the blog-sites with their opinions, gang up to try to silence a critic.

    P.S. Until recently the Hovelling Boat Inn was an art and gift shop. Anybody who lives in Ramsgate could tell you that.

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    1. I don't live in Ramsgate, which is why I asked!

      Tell me, are all people in Ramsgate as miserable as you?

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    2. Peter, I think he is a bit of a one off who groups us all as opponents of his bizarre views and thus, some kind of clones of each other. Like you, but as a Broadstairs person, I knew nothing of the background of the building that is now the Hovelling Boat Inn and, but for your query, would have probably remained ignorant.

      It sounds interesting and I might even pop in there for a jar when I next have occassion to go to Waitrose for something I cannot find elsewhere. Must remember to wear my 'I'm Tom Clarke' badge in case Anon wants to say hello. I will certainly keep my eyes peeled for an ill mannered, miserable, little old runt lurking somewhere, probably carrying a 'No to Night Flights' placard, if not 'Down with Arlington/Tesco' for he certainly sounds the type.

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  8. I guess reading the comment here that it would help if I explained how I go about a post like this.
    I get an hour for lunch, I walked to Rooks and got a £1.99 ham salad baguette, which I ate waking to York street where I photographed the Hovelling Boat, I then did the food shopping for tonight’s meal, turkey for Easter Day and so on, got home and wrote the post over a cup of tea, my mobile phone automatically publishes the pictures to the internet, so it is all a fairly quick process.
    My hour up I went back to work, essentially helping people to buy the right books, I got to my tea break noticed Peter’s comment and added the missing word.
    Frankly any help I get with the blog is a bonus, so if Peter reads it and notices an error I just see this as helpful that he pointed it out.

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    1. Thank you Michael. Any more info on the history of the building (presumably it hasn't been an art and gift shop for over a century), and I don't suppose you have any pics of it when it was a pub previously?

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    2. Peter I have added a couple of pictures but apart from the names of the businesses which i could get from Kellys I doubt there would be much more info.

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    3. Thanks Michael, great stuff!

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. Your efforts produce excellent, informative results, Michael, even if they do attract challenges from those locally who remain obsessed with looking for "reds under the beds" and with other ideologies most people left behind in the 50s and 60s. Picking up on the comment about the abusive blog run by John Hamilton, yes he has a one-track interest - attacking every aspect of Ian Driver. It is a very sad, isolated blog patronised only by like-minded folk such as Tom Clarke and John Holyer. I rest my case.

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    1. Anonymouse 8:51 am.

      I have seen better arguments in a bowl of alphabet soup.

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    2. Just for the record, Anon, I do share John Hamilton's view of Driver as a chancer who is engaged entirely in self promotion even if, at times, I find his language a little too colourful, though to each his own. I also find Driver a menace, not simply because of his dated extreme left views, but for the damage he does to local politics which, I think many of us were agreed, was bad enough without him making it even worse.

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  11. Well I'm glad you enjoy such quality food and reading material, Holyer. It explains su much.

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    1. Anonymouse 10:12,

      Ah, so you are the Manston Aquifer Man, and you can't spell 'so'. You are a man of hidden shallows.

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  12. Sorry to destroy your latest illusion, Holyer, but I am not the "Manston Aquifer man". A slip of the finger on the keyboard is the explanation for "su". Your alphabet soup has obviously provided a sound education for you. Your family and friends must be very proud.

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    1. But you are still a prat, 3:18, whoever else you may be.

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    2. Anonymouse 3:18 pm,

      Of course you're not the Aquifer Man, if you say so. After all, there is nothing wrong with you that reincarnation couldn't cure.

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    3. Careful on the reincarnation bit, John, it is Easter Sunday after all and anything is possible. You never know, old Anon, may have a suddenn flush of goodwill to all men including us.

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  13. I never feel goodwill towards those who are clearly very nasty pieces of work.

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.