Denton Holme, Carlisle
Denton Holme Conservative Club
Members' club on Morley Street with a function room upstairs used for parties and receptions. Cheap drinks.
- Today
- See opening hours
- Address
- Morley Street, Carlisle CA2 5HQ
- Phone
- 01228 522927
History
Opened Founded 29 July 1954
- Formed
- 29 July 1954
- Registered as
- Denton Holme Working Men's Conservative Club
- Trades as
- Denton Holme WMCC
A Conservative Working Men's Recreational Club was set up in Denton Holme in 1878, meeting at first at St James School before moving to permanent premises. In February 1885 the Carlisle Denton Holme Working Men's Conservative Club Company, Limited, called its fifth ordinary general meeting 'at the Club, 19 and 21 Nelson Street', with an annual dinner the following week under R. S. Ferguson, and the club is still going nearly a century and a half later.
The registered name makes it both things at once: a working men's club and a Conservative club in a single title. Those are two separate traditions elsewhere on this site, the institutes at Upperby and Fisher Street and the political clubs at the South End Constitutional and Spencer Street. Here they meet, in the old textile quarter of Denton Holme, among the mill workers it was for, with the Milbourne round the corner.
The Carlisle Patriot followed it through its early decades. By February 1895 it was holding its fourteenth annual meeting, with J. H. Dobinson as secretary; the paper covered its 15th general meeting on 7 February 1896, its 20th annual meeting on 25 January 1901, and an AGM on 15 February 1907.
The club incorporated as a formal society on 29 July 1954, which is the date often given for it, though it is the paperwork rather than the beginning. The Evening News and Star reported a ÂŁ143,000 refurbishment on 24 May 1997. It trades now as Denton Holme WMCC, dropping Conservative to an initial, a quieter version of the Spencer Street rebrand; as with those, the political origin is history, and it runs as an ordinary community club.
Three refurbished function rooms, five dartboards, singers, bingo and big-screen match days. One review is from a couple whose outdoor wedding reception was rained off and who were taken in at the last minute and looked after. That is what these places are for.
Widely repeated locally, but we haven't found a source for it yet. Know one?
- Club
- Cheap pint
- members-only
Opening hours
| Mon | 12:00–23:30 |
| Tue | 12:00–23:30 |
| Wed | 12:00–23:30 |
| Thu | 12:00–23:30 |
| Fri | 12:00–midnight |
| Sat | 11:00–midnight |
| Sun | 12:00–23:30 |
Hours last checked August 2026, about 2 months ago.
Hours are kept by hand and change without warning. Ring ahead if it matters.
More like this
Nearest to here
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80 maway
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110 maway
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450 maway
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580 maway
4 lost pubs stood within 400 m of here. See what used to be around it
Sources
- Companies House
- Carlisle Encyclopaedia, "D" page
- Carlisle Patriot, 13 February 1885, p. 1: notice, Carlisle Denton Holme Working Men's Conservative Club Company (via British Newspaper Archive)
- Carlisle Patriot, 1 February 1895, p. 1: Conservative club notices and advertisements (via British Newspaper Archive)
Open question
Is it still open?
The Carlisle Encyclopaedia gives this club's address as Nelson Street ("their present premises" as of 2021), not Morley Street as recorded here and in other sources. Whether the club moved premises at some point, or one source has the street wrong, hasn't been established. The club's own notice of February 1885 gives 19 and 21 Nelson Street.
If you know the answer, or where it might be found (an old photograph, a family story, a document), tell us and it goes into the history above.