Casino - Rochester

The roller rink at Rochester on the corner of Blue Boar Lane and Corporation Street has seen many guises since it was first introduced to the world in 1910.

In August of 1909 the Rochester Town Council approved the building of a new roller rink on Corporation Street. Roller skating was in the middle of a boom period and rinks were being erected all over the country at an eye watering rate of knots.

On 23rd May 1910 the Palace Skating Rink opened its doors for the very first time. The name would be short lived as by October of the same year it was referred to as the County Rink and shortly after that, simply the Rochester Skating Rink.

By 1913 interest in roller skating started to diminish as rapidly as it had become popular just a few years earlier. Many rinks were either closed down or turned into dance halls or the latest craze, a picture theatre (latter day cinema). The Rochester rink, however, still enjoyed roller skating as an attraction and looked like riding out the downturn but the advent of the First World War put paid to any of that.

Throughout the war the venue remained closed for roller skating but when hostilities ceased and the doors reopened the proprietors of the rink decided in their wisdom to turn it into a billiard hall and it became known as the Temperence Billiard Hall. By August 1923 its function had once again changed to a dance hall known as the Palais de Danse.

In 1927 it was purchased by a local businessman, Lloyd Forsyth. The building was again closed for refurbishment and on 3rd September of that year it was once again opened with a new name, the Casino. The venue would welcome dancing and boxing and the welcome return of roller skating.

The venue soon became the home of the Rochester City roller skating club and on 29th November 1927 the first roller speed skating event took place for the Kent Championship over one mile, won by George Sidwell (Herne Bay).

In the early 1930’s the North Kent Roller Racing League was established and the Casino, along with other venues in Kent such as the Pier Pavilion at Herne Bay and the rinks at Margate and Ramsgate, were venues for inter club racing throughout the county.

When war broke out for a second time in 1939 the Casino remained open as an entertainment venue that included roller skating. Granted there were no British Championship events but it is recorded that a race was still held in 1944 at the rink.

The rink as a bona-fide venue for national speed skating events really took hold in 1946. A local café owner, Jerry Chambers (incidentally the donator of the Chambers Trophy to the NSA), was a frequent visitor to the Casino and a keen supporter of both speed skating and roller hockey. He donated the “Jerry Cup” to the Rochester club which was to be awarded to a team that had amassed the most number of points by combining the results of inter-club hockey matches and speed events.

In 1949 the National Skating Association (NSA) decided that the Casino would be the venue for that year’s Southern Counties, eventually won by Len Radford (Broadway).

Over the years the Casino tended to be a stop-over rink for the clubs, meaning that there was usually a race at the Herne Bay Pavilion on the Saturday followed by a race meeting at the Casino in Rochester on the Sunday. It was a time before motorways and the feeling was that if the southern clubs, most notably those in Kent, wanted to secure a high number of entries then they had to make the whole weekend attractive to other clubs outside of the region.

On 12th February 1950 a new British Championship was introduced for women, the Quarter Mile for the Beaumont Cup. The NSA chose the Casino as the venue for this event eventually won by Yvonne Brod (Broadway). The rink was only ever used twice more for a British Championship race, both times being the ladies Quarter Mile in 1951 and 1952.

Rochester also enjoyed a very good hockey team and produced skaters who would go on and race for Great Britain as well as play hockey for their country in the form of Peter Wimble and Alan Cattee. Cattee would actually go on and captain Great Britain at hockey.

The Rochester City club broke into a few factions in the mid 1930’s with clubs like Shorts and Medway being off-shoots of the original club, however, by the late 1950’s these breakaway clubs had all come back together once more to become Rochester United.

By 1960 it had been suggested for some time that the rink was going to close, but whilst in May 1961 the rink had a stay of execution, the last roller speed skating event for over a decade was on 4th December 1960. It was the Squire Cup, a regular feature at the rink but interest in speed had waned in Rochester and many of the local speed skaters had taken to roller hockey. There had been no speed world championships in 1958 and 1959 and those who played hockey felt the status of international competition in that sport was taken more seriously. Shortly afterwards the speed contingent of Rochester United folded.

The rink continued to be used for roller skating, predominantly roller hockey and roller dancing amongst other sports. It did have a brief venture as a bingo hall in 1968 but in 1969 it was bought by the Rochester Council and returned to what it was best known for, as sporting venue, but the building was now old and tired and with the local council now taking ownership it was earmarked for demolition. The Rochester Council were at that time leasing the building on an annual basis to the Casino Sports Association for a rent of £100 per month. Every six months a review would take place which resulted in a number of reprieves from the bulldozers.

With Rochester United now consigned to the history books and whilst this reprieve was ongoing, the Anglo Daor club took ownership of the Squire Cup, Christopher Cup and Jackson Cup and held the events on the rink in 1971 and 1972. On 6th August 1972 the old Casino rink was used for one last time for roller speed skating.

On 30th April 1975, some six years since it was destined to be levelled the Casino finally closed its doors as a sporting venue and local indoor sports moved to fancy new sports hall built at the Southill Depot in Chatham, aptly named the New Casino.

The building stood empty for a number of years whilst its fate was continually debated. Eventually, in 1986 the building too on a new lease of life. The interior was split into two levels, the upper level becoming a snooker hall and the ground floor destined to be a mixture of gymnasium, bar and night club. Since then, the building has been further ‘enhanced’. Now known as the Casino Rooms it is a popular and award winning entertainment venue and has become Kent’s largest night club.

The exterior of the building is still instantly recognisable but sadly, no trace remains of the roller rink where some of Britain’s (and the world’s) greatest skaters graced the wooden floor.