Bar 71 50th Anniversary

Brancaster's Bar 71, formerly The 71 Club, celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Brancaster Village Hall complex and forms an integral and focal part of the community facilities that the hall offers.

Hundreds of local people turned out to celebrate this anniversary, which featured live music by local group The Nod, refreshments and displays detailing the history of The 71 Club and Brancaster Village Hall: a very good time was had by all!

Bar 71 has been part of the major refurbishment and extension of the whole site two years ago, which had strong financial support from the National Lottery as well as from the local community. This has included the re-establishment of the village shop and Post Office, which has put the heart back into the village, both being much used.

Following the lifting of Covid restrictions, the Brancaster Village Hall complex, including Bar 71, has gone from strength to strength, with a very significant footfall. It now delivers and hosts a wide range of activities, supporting all ages in the community.

The 50^th Anniversary celebrations featured an exhibition on events that have occurred in the village since 1971 and also the development of the site since the Simms-Reeve family funded the original building for community activities in 1904.

To further mark the occasion, the Brancaster Village Hall Committee has approved the development of an archive which will bring together all aspects of this historic and distinguished village and its surrounding areas. Some of this archive, on show at the 50^th Anniversary, was put together by Patric Stuart, one of the founders of the 71 Club and now Vice-Chair of the Brancaster Village Hall Management Committee, and Sabrina Rayner Rayner, a history student at the University of East Anglia. It dealt in part with the little-known fact that Brancaster was one possible location chosen by the Government in the early 60s as a site for the UK space centre, which would have had a significant impact on the village and the whole area.

John Wareham, the Chair of the Trustees, thanked the committees of both Brancaster Village Hall and Bar 71, together with staff and all members of the community for their contribution in making this anniversary event such a tremendous success: particular thanks went to The Nod.

Patric Stuart is on the right in the picture, with Neil Bevan, bar manager of Bar 71 on the left.