Comrades Club Centenary
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EDNESDAY 7th October 2020 marked 100 years to the day since the Comrades Club formally opened its doors. Thanks to the current COVID-19 restrictions, we haven’t been able to celebrate as we would have liked, but here’s a brief look back at the history of this much-loved Probus institution. Formed by the returning comrades of the 1914–18 Great War, the principal objectives of the club have always remained, and indeed form the basis of the rules of the club - to perpetuate the feeling of comradeship generated in the First World War; to foster good fellowship and social intercourse and to provide facilities for recreation and amusement. It was intended to be a place to reflect, talk, laugh and cry, to celebrate the lives of those who returned and, more especially, those who did not.
1 Cornish Mount on the corner of The Square and Chapel Street, the site of a former pub and now a Grade II listed building and private dwelling. There may be some confusion about what that pub was actually called The Book of Probus, by Alan M. Kent and Danny L.J. Merrifield, lists it as the Cornish Mount, while Historic England’s description of the building identifies it as having once been The Bell public house. Whatever the name, it appears to have closed by the end of 1918.
1 Cornish Mount, the first home of the Comrades Club. While the Comrades Club was initially open only to Probus ex-servicemen, at the opening ceremony the hope was expressed that ‘it would eventually be open to those men of the village who had no opportunity of serving during the Great War’. In time the club was indeed opened for all men of Probus, and by the mid-1930s the membership had grown to such an extent that larger premises were needed.
The notice in the West Briton, published on 14th October 1920. For the first two decades or so of its existence, the club rented premises at
In November 1940, members agreed to buy two parcels of land in Tregony Road, the site now occupied by local businesses, on which to build new premises. Just as the purchase had been agreed, however, the club was offered the chance to buy The Letter B pub on St Austell Road. A ready-equipped pub November 2020 | 21
