Royal Willows Hotel, Pambula

The Royal Willows Hotel

In many ways, Pambula’s Royal Willows Hotel is typical of single-storey Australian country pubs: architecturally, it is an undistinguished, modest building; it has been constructed of common, often locally-sourced materials; it has changed in function and in appearance over time to reflect changing circumstances in the town; it has been an important social centre of the town and its licensees have been active supporters of the town’s popular community activities.

William James Tweedie and his wife, Mary Jane, developed the site at the lower end of Pambula township as a hotel in the mid-1860s. Both of them retained a financial interest in the hotel until William died in 1926 and Mary sold the business and the freehold to the property a year later – although, throughout that entire period, William was licensee for only short times.

The hotel started life as the Royal Hotel. It originally had stables and a buggy room, and William Tweedie operated a blacksmith’s shop adjoining the hotel. At some later time a billiards room was added (in 1894 the then-licensee, Mr G A Wood was fined £5 + costs ‘for allowing billiards to be played on his premises for hire or profit, he not being the holder of a license.’), which later became a sample room where commercial travellers could display their wares, then a general store, and, in the 1980s, a bottle shop.

In 1923 the Royal Hotel was renamed the Hotel Royal. In the late 1950s it had another name change to the Royal Willows Hotel.

In 1902 an acetylene gas plant was installed at the Hotel Royal to supply fuel to 15 lights, and it was then promoted as the first hotel on the Far South Coast to be equipped with this convenience. Another ‘first’ for the hotel occurred in 1962 when Pambula town’s first freestanding tourist accommodation facilities (motel units) were added to the hotel site.

In the early 1960s Matt McCoy, who had previously been a well-known professional Rugby League player, was the licensee. He was followed as licensee by George and Shirley Phelps, the parents of Dr Kerryn Phelps (the first female President of the Australian Medical Association and the Member for Wentworth in the Australian Parliament following the resignation of Malcolm Turnbull). For a short time Kerryn lived at the hotel and attended the local Primary School.

Image: The Art Deco Hotel Royal