OUR HISTORY.
1963: The University of East Anglia is first established. At this point campus was first located where is now known as the Village. The university owned a small bar there. 1971: Campus as we know it was designed and built. ‘The Street’ was purpose built to be the hub of the community; with a bar, shops and cafés.
The bar was known as Winnie’s Bar.
1972: On the 4th of December at noon, Winnie's Bar pulled its first pint with owner Dennis Chambers. The university still ran the bar at this point and the bar was open twice a day, once between 12pm-2pm and again from 5pm-11pm (the earlier close due to the licensing laws at the time). The bar at this time only consisted of what is now known as ‘red bar’. The ‘blue bar’ side of the pub at that point was a burger bar. Both amenities were separated by a staircase which ran through the building from the street into the hive.
1972: On the 4th of December at noon, Winnie's Bar pulled its first pint with owner Dennis Chambers. The university still ran the bar at this point and the bar was open twice a day, once between 12pm-2pm and again from 5pm-11pm (the earlier close due to the licensing laws at the time). The bar at this time only consisted of what is now known as ‘red bar’. The ‘blue bar’ side of the pub at that point was a burger bar. Both amenities were separated by a staircase which ran through the building from the street into the hive.
1973: UEA’S first Snakebite!
1982: The yearly University Council took place and during this council it was uncovered that the bar was making a loss whilst being ran by the University, so the Students Union offered to run the bar. After a lot of paperwork and meetings with the university, Winnie’s Bar was now officially the Student’s Union Bar.
​​1980: Margaret Thatcher was in power and under her government Unions such as the Students Union were placed under a lot of pressure as many laws were passed to limit union power. Many unions because of this, created businesses to protect themselves; this is when UEA SU created SUS East Anglia LTD, now allowing the SU to have a commercial side to the charity.
1983: Scholar's bar was created on the top floor of Union House. This was run by post-graduate volunteers who were paid in beer vouchers!
1984-1990: The profit that the SU managed to generate from the bar allowed us to expand our commercial side, acquiring the shop, a sports shop, a second-hand bookshop and a travel shop. Fun fact: The LCR tickets which you can now buy online you would have to buy from the box office located inside of the travel shop.
2003: The staircase between red and blue bar was removed making the bar one large space. Blue bar was converted into a disco space with its circular dancefloor. Moving the student's union bar from not just a pub space but a function room. This space would later be used from 2014 as a second room for club nights.
​2007: Smoking in pubs was officially banned on the 1st of July 2007. Bar SU from here onwards was a smoke-free place.
2011: Coldplay came and played a BBC Live Lounge gig in Blue Bar before playing their main gig up in the LCR.
2020: Covid-19 gave a big financial hit to the Students Union causing the SU to sell all food and coffee outlets back to the University. Covid-19 also saw the welcomed introduction of the beer garden, with benches across the green closest to the bar, it allowed students to start socialising again and take a step back into normal life after isolating for so long.
As you can imagine, with club nights not running due to Covid-19, the bar was left with a lot of extra stock, which included over 10,000 VKs. We gave away as much as we could, giving away crates a time. We still had too much. We eventually had to bite the bullet and pour the remaining away. But to do this, we had to contact Anglian Waters so that we wouldn’t contaminate the water with beer, who then gave us set times and dates we were allowed to pour them down the sink.
2024: Scholar's bar was refurbished into Dorothy's after a decline in post-graduates using the space. Alongside this, it created a space for students to book out the bar for karaoke and quizzes.
And that brings us to today! Where we're still adapting and changing to whatever is thrown our way, all for the greater good of students!