Broadway Hotel

The seventh town referenda on licensed premises in Letchworth held on the 17th May 1957 found 2644 residents in favour of "a licensed hotel, with residential accommodation, public restaurant, ballroom, lounges, bars etc., in the centre of town", with 766 against. Note that this was not for acceptance of public houses or off-licenses.

Building work was started in 1961 and completed in 1962 and the hotel was officially opened on the 1st November with a commemorative lunch. The name was chosen as the result of a competition organised by The Citizen' newspaper in conjunction with the proprietors, Charringtons. Rated by the AA as a 3 star hotel, it had 30 bedrooms, a ballroom, a restaurant and three bars. The first major function to be held at the hotel was a celebration dinner, on Saturday 8th December, for the setting up of the Garden City Corporation.

An interesting clause was written into the lease of the building, namely that no other licensed premises were to be opened within an area of three quarters of a mile radius from the hotel without previous consent of the lessees - namely Charringtons - during the period of 14 years from the 25th March 1961. Thus it was not for a considerable number of years that other premises were allowed. The exceptions to this were the off-licence in the Arena Parade, opened by Charringtons, and the one in the Station forecourt, the latter being on Railway property and outside the jurisdiction of the then First Garden City Limited.

Ebenezeer Howard's rule book had been torn up, Letchworth was no longer a dry town.

During the war a bomb was dropped quite near the Three Horseshoes Inn at Norton, then there was the big explosion fairly close to the Wilbury Hotel, was the German air force targeting the pubs around Letchworth? Winston Churchill had heard about this and apparently wrote a letter to the local paper to say he was giving instructions to Bomber Command to target some German pubs in retaliation, obviously tongue in cheek and a bit of morale boosting.