A little bit about our first six decades…

The club was started in Rhyl back in 1964 at the Palace Hotel. It was christened The Palace Folk Club but after about six months this changed to The Bee Folk Club following a relocation to The Bee & Station Hotel.

This central venue remained the home of the club for thirty-four years and during this time it became known as Rhyl Folk Club. The ‘Bee’ finally closed its doors during the final weeks of the last millennium and for the next ten years, Rhyl Folk Club had an itinerant existence with spells at numerous venues including Costigans, the RAFA club, Rhyl Labour club and Caskeys.

Photo © John Law. Click the image for his Flickr Page

The Bee Hotel. Home to the club for 34 years. Photo © John Law

When Caskeys went the way of so many pubs and closed down in December 2009, it coincided with the sad passing of the club treasurer.  The folk club meetings were suspended and remained so for 50 weeks.

The future of the club seemed doomed. The then organiser decided he no longer had any interest in restarting the club but offered any free support he could to anyone who wished to take over from him. This eventually happened in 2010 when two long-serving members, Nick Gausden & Terry Mealey took the reins and negotiated with Rhyl Football Club to use one of their club rooms as a Friday night venue.

After a slow start, the club picked up and in a bid to broaden its appeal, the organisers changed the club’s name yet again, this time to Rhyl Folk & Acoustic Club.

CaskeysThis change did not go down well with some of the older members who objected to the club opening up to more contemporary styles and genres. In February 2012, this came to a head when they broke away to form a new club, whilst resurrecting (some would say hi-jacking) the old Rhyl Folk Club name to reflect their ethic of favouring traditional folk music.

Happily, two-thirds of the original membership remained here at the original club, many of whom are still regulars to this day.

The club has gone from strength to strength and since embracing a wider, varied musical genre, attracts many young, fresh talents which has boosted attendance.

In 2019 we lost the use of the room at Rhyl Football Club, prompting the move to our current venue, The British Legion in Llanddulas.

Our music is a mix of all types of genres from Folk to Blues to Country – in fact, anything acoustic! It’s an “open mic” format and anyone is welcome to play on a first come first served basis. Non-players are also most welcome, so if you fancy a good night out at our comfortable venue with a licensed bar and a large free car park – come along and give us a try.