Memorial Hall opened on pub site 12 years after war ended

It was a particularly significant year of remembrance in Houghton.

A few months earlier the village’s Memorial Hall had been opened on the site of what had formerly been a pub.

It was the result of the tireless efforts of a group of villagers who had been fundraising to provide a hall since the end of the war in 1945.

This photo shows the King’s Arms pub on the left, on the corner of Bedford Road, and All Saints Church in the background.

The tiled building in the centre once housed Houghton’s fire engine, in the years when this was pulled into action by a pair of horses.

In more modern times the fire station became a bus shelter, before being demolished to make way for a car park serving Bedford Square shopping centre.

> Yesteryear is compiled by John Buckledee, chairman of Dunstable and District Local History Society.