Newington Green is home to one of the last of London’s Working Men’s clubs, the
Mildmay.
I frequently walk past the Mildmay Club building and always wondered what it is like
inside. When I finally had the chance to enter, meet some committee members and take
some photographs, I realised I had been given a rare opportunity. This was, after all, an
exclusive, 129-year-old club where membership is not easy.
The entrance wall carries black-and-white photographs of chairman Fred C Riches’s family
– including his mother’s 100th birthday – with some that date back to the 1900s. Then
there is a small board listing the names of the club’s committee members and a much
larger board, listing the club’s First World War dead – nearly 400 of them.
A glass-panelled display just before the main hall contains a picture of dancing women as
they are watched by men propping up the bar, giving a rare insight into what this venue
must have looked like in the 1930s when there was a theatre here.
The main hall, however, takes you two decades further – to the 1950s. Its retro wallpaper,
shiny disco curtain and traditional decoration has been preserved in this state for nearly
half a century.
Ron Jeffreys, the Mildmay Club House committee secretary, said many films, serials and
stand-up comics liked to film here because of this preserved decorative style.
The Victorian building, with its three halls and a nine-table snooker hall, has been used for
film shoots, such as Ken Loach’s Vera Drake, and a series of Stewart Lee’s Comedy
Vehicle were shot there too.
Jeffreys, who has been a member here for more than 20 years, said a property
development company wanted to knock the building down and build luxury flats.
They offered £3.5 million, he said, but members turned it down.
“The club members wanted to preserve Mildmay Club as it is and let it continue as a club,”
he said.
Today there are around 500 members of the club and they become shareholders of the
club and the land upon which it stands five years are joining.
“We have no plans to sell,” he said. “We want to carry on like this.”
Mildmay Radical Club, as it was then known, opened in 1888 at 36 Newington Green
Road and moved to a newly built clubhouse at 34 Newington Green near the Unitarian
chapel in 1894, after the vicar of St. Matthias criticised its “pernicious influence among the
young”. Rifle ranges were added to the facilities in 1907 and 1921. In 1930 it changed its
name to the Mildmay Club and Institute, a name change that saw the club abandon its
radical politics and enter a non-political era. By the 1950s, it was staging weekly variety
shows.
Only a handful of such clubs still exist in London – including the Mildmay Club in
Newington Green. It was once so busy – boasting 3000 members, by one account – that
on some days it was not even possible to enter through the front door.
No women at the bar in the 60s Jeffreys told us that some club rules were very strict in the 1960s.
“Ladies would not allowed to going to the bar downstairs. Only men could enter. There
used be room on the side called the Ladies Room where ladies would go, and their
husband would bring them up the drink in to that room. Their children would go there too.”
When the main hall was used a theatre, women were permitted to come and watch the
shows on stage. The war years saw many star names take the stage, while the 1970s and
1980s heralded a modern era, when the theatre made way for a dance piste and stage.
The chairman Fred C Riches is a member because of his parents, ad has been so for 70
years. His parents grace some of the photographs on the wall.
“This is owned by members,” Riches said. “It’s not owned by anybody else. People here
own the club. We are all shareholders, all 330 members. But we get a lot more people in.
Everybody nominates someone, so we keep it without any trouble. This is a family club.”
There was live music on the Saturday night I visited the club. Committee member
Christopher Lucas said: “Saturday night is traditionally family entertaintment night.
Mildmay has been a Working Men’s club for many years. A lot of working men’s clubs
have closed. They faded because of the changes in people’s habits and customs.
“This club is going to go on because we have got new members getting in with new ideas
as well. This what we are looking for. We want to preserve Mildmay as a Working Men’s
club.”