From the Newmarket Journal: Town centre pub to become Islamic centre "One of Newmarket's best known pubs is to be converted into an Islamic cultural centre."
The Five Bells, in St Mary's Square, has been sold to an organisation representing Newmarket's Islamic community, whose leader intend to use the historic building as a centre for education, functions and festivals.
The pubs former owner, Admiral Taverns, confirmed the sale this week. A spokeswoman said: "Despite all parties best efforts, the sustained poor trading performance of the Five Bells has meant we no longer believe that this pub has a viable long term future. After careful consideration, the pub was placed on the market for sale, and it has now been sold."
Maqsood Mohammed, whose brother Ali, is vice chairman of the Newmarket Inter Faith Forum, said the new owner of the pub was the Newmarket Islamic Cultural Centre which had bought it using funds it had raised over a number of years, and with the help of loans from mosques and charities across the country, including London, Aylesbury and Luton.
"There has been an Islamic community in Newmarket for around 20 years", said Mr. Mohammed. "Currently there are between 150 and 200 families and more than 100 children. We have been looking for suitable premises for more than five years now and we are very excited to have found somewhere and acquired this building. We don't want to make any changes to it, it had four good sized rooms and a garden at the back along with storage, some of which is currently used by the church next door and will continue. We are currently working on a change of use application which will be lodged with the local council and our next step is to secure that permission. One of the main uses will be Islamic education for our children, as until now we were not able to find any suitable facilities that fulfil health and safety requirements".
The Five Bells is a Grade Two Listed building and was named for the fact that nearby St. Mary's Church had five bells. In 1811 it was reputed to be the lodgings of racing tout, Daniel Dawson, who was hanged in 1812 for poisoning two heavily backed horses entered for the Spring meeting. He was caught after the then landlady Mrs Tilbrook discovered the poison as she was snooping through his belongings.
The stables at the rear were once used by trainer Dick Perryman, and were home at one time to his 1946 Derby winner, the grey Airborne. Tony Pringle, who was landlord of the pub between 1968 and 1991, remembered it was the reason his mother, Mollie, whose father was then landlord, always backed greys in the Epsom classic.
The pub was owned by Bury based brewers Greene King from 1896 until 2010 when it was sold to Admiral Taverns. Early this month, an inaugural gathering was held at the premises which was attended by around 300 guests from across the country and local community leaders. "We want this to be seen as a positive move for the whole community", said Mr. Mohammed, " We want everyone in Newmarket to feel welcome at the centre".