CARFAX Assembly Rooms, the well-known Oxford dance venue, eventually became known as the Orchid Rooms.

But the change to an upmarket title was not enough to save the premises.

The building in Cornmarket Street, where thousands of people danced and many fell in love, closed its doors early in 1968.

Once a mecca for ballroom dancing, it had become a victim of the rock ‘n’ roll craze.

Problems began as early as 1955 when the hit parade began to take off.

Teenagers would flock on to the dance floor to jive, leaving little room for ballroom dancers, who eventually gave up coming.

Eddie Turton, manager of the Carfax, became so frustrated at the trend that he put up ‘No jiving’ notices.

He said jiving was “decadent and primitive”, while dance band leader Stan Rogers described it as “a curse to ballroom dancing”.

The jivers hit back, saying they would boycott the venue.

“That would suit me fine,” was Mr Turton’s retort.

By the early-1960s, however, the number of ballroom dancers had dwindled, ‘proper’ dancing ended and rock took over.

The owners, the Oxford & District Co-operative Society, decided in 1968 that the venue was no longer viable and, after using it as a carpet store for a while, sold it to the Midland Bank, now HSBC.

An official told the Oxford Mail at the time: “There are limits to how far you can go in giving a service, even in a Co-operative Society.

“The time comes when you have to take a close look at something that is not giving the return it should. The Orchid Rooms, being in the centre of town, are very expensive from the rates point of view.”

The decision to close brought plenty of criticism, particularly from ballroom dancers, in the Oxford Mail letters pages.

But as a Co-op official said: “If Oxford was a dancing town, the Mecca people would have moved in. And they haven’t, have they?”