Southampton's The 1865: the venue making headlines with big rock names

The 1865, on Brunswick Square, was originally built as a depot for Belfast ropes in the late 60s and later turned into a dance club before being renovated into a social club for Southampton dockers sports and social club.

After being bought by Martin’s rubber company to be turned into a facility for the company, the owner Paul Hooper turned it into a live music venue.

He named it after the year the rubber firm was established and had Guy Benfield, 61, run the site.

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The 61-year-old has now been running the venue for six years.

Paul Hooper, owner of the venue and of Martin's rubber company said: "Guy took over the business and has been running very successfully ever since and has been going from strength to strength."

“The thing about running events like this is that you get the feeling of fulfilment when you have happy audiences and happy bands and that’s always the case with us.

“We’re an asset to the city as we bring a lot of acts to Southampton which impacts local bars and hotels, we have people who travel from distances to come to enjoy the shows.

“We had shows with Snow Patrol and Young Blud and others.”

The manager says he's confident about what the future holds and appeals to people to come to enjoy the live music saying: “We’re doing fine and we’ve had lots of very good events and we’re very excited for the future.

“Come and reconnect with a group of other people who are enjoying themselves and enjoy the atmosphere, get hold of the atmosphere.

“You can’t build the audience of a live event, it beats films, everything. Experience it with all the lights, everything.”

1865 is one of the venues that shoppers are encouraged to support as part of the great Christmas giveaway.

When shoppers support local businesses they are signing up for the competition which could see them win one of 25 prizes.

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