Club History

The club was formed in 1946 with Dr. Hugh Whitehead [Head of Dairy Research Institute] as first President.

Prior to this many people had been playing bridge socially in their own homes.

The Women’s County Club which was in Roscoe’s now the Public Library had a Bridge playing section.

The club first played in the Young Women’s Christian Association hall which was in Church Street where Beaurepairs tyre firm is now situated.

Tournaments were held in the Concert Chamber which was an upstairs hall forming part of the Opera House on the corner of Ashford and Church Street. These always had a full field of 25 tables with a waiting list of reserves. Local players were often asked to stand down to make way for visitors from other clubs. A large number of players would come from Wellington and Wanganui.
Scoring was by single match points which meant that halves were part of the scoring system. The director was a Mr Van Rockell from Wellington. For the evening session the Ladies wore full length evening dress and the men including the Director Dinner suits.

In the mid 1950’s members were looking for their own home as pulling tables out from underneath the stage before play and putting them away was becoming quite a chore.

A house on the corner of Linton and Ferguson Street formerly used by Rush and Co. Coal Merchants was purchased using a combination of member’s debenture and the balance as a Loan from the club treasurer Beryl Fougere.

Imagine the many working bees required to get the rooms ready for play.
Early tournaments required two rooms to be used. Over the next forty years several major alterations were made until practically the whole section became club rooms which could accommodate twenty eight tables in the main playing room with twelve in the small room.

The evening sessions featured a supper break at 9-00pm. The club employed a local lady to come in and set out and wash up for the twenty plus tables that played in those days

The purchase of the house next door was to prove a brilliant investment. For a number of years it was rented out to pay off the mortgage.

For years we had the use of a sealed car park next door. With the building of Pak N Save a limit of two hours parking restriction was imposed with problems for Bridge Club members. As a result some of our daytime players had their vehicles towed away. For a time, members took a break half way through the evening to move their cars to a different parking spot to avoid the vehicles being towed away.

The early 1990’s proved to be an interesting time for the club as various proposals were looked at by the committee of those years. Finally Foodstuffs Wellington approached us with a proposal to relocate us in return for our Club Rooms and parking area.
After several years of looking at different proposals the club agreed to sell and shift to our present site on the corner of Cuba and Cook Street.

We now have a club rooms which can accommodate forty two tables and park over fifty cars.