If you are a visitor to our Folkestone office you will know that it is a slightly unusual building which was once a bank. Here are a few facts about the building that you may find interesting.
 
The building was originally constructed as a doctor’s surgery with a dispensary in the basement.  We are not sure of the original construction date, but we think it may have been around 1837. Certainly, the whole of Castle Hill Avenue was completed by 1850.
 
The first lease dates from 1868 when the Earl of Radnor leased the property to Joseph Page, but we do not know what the building was being used for at that time.
 
The history of the building during the early part of the 20th century is unclear but we know that it was converted to a bank in the early 1940s and Lloyds occupied it for several years. Towards the end of World War II it became a jewellers shop.

The upper floors were a family home and continued to be used in this way until 1961 when the property was converted into a number of separate flats.
 
A computer repair shop occupied the ground-floor until the mid-1980s when Grooms Hearing Aid Centre moved in. Mr Groom retired in 2007 and Hearbase moved in, where we continue to this day.

When we took over the building the old boiler room was still in place and there is a reference in the lease to the right to pay a stoker to maintain the boiler during the winter and the original bank vault is still part of the building, but we now use it as a stock room.

An old photo of the Hearbase building on the corner of Castle Hill Avenue and Sandgate Road, Folkestone
The Hearbase head office after the frontage was changed