Cardenden Homely Bingo – Main Street

At the moment we are not 100% sure of the events that led up to, or any of the circumstances surrounding the closure of the Homely Bingo Cardenden, but we do know a bit about about the venue’s history.

The building dates from the 1950s, and was originally the Scottish Gas shop. It closed in the early 70s (some people have quoted 1972, others 1973), and it subsequently became a bingo club, called Club 66. It later changed its name to Homely Bingo, and survived as such until 1982/3, when bingo ceased.

After that, it became a fancy goods shop, but still in the light blue colours with Homely Bingo lettering painted onto it, and then a foodstore. It closed down as a foodstore in 2009, but new owners opened it up again in 2011. The new signage is smaller than the Ramzan Foodstore sign above the entrance on streetview, and for a while the word “bingo” was visible in the paintwork, but in December 2013, repainting was starting on the property, and so the bingo lettering will go.

One possible reason Homely Bingo shut was simply that the Rex Bingo was located 3 minutes walk away, and probably offered better facilities and better prizes. It too would close, in 1987.

If you have any further details that may assist us, and you would like to share them with our readers, we would love to hear from you. If you let us know what you know, we will put the details online with your name credited (if you wish, or we can credit the article as anonymous). You will be doing a service to the bingo community and posterity by helping us record details of all Britain’s bingo clubs and halls. Thank you.

By Robert Clark (December 2013)