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The Windsock was situated on West Street and built on the site of an earlier pub called The Rifle Volunteer, which was demolished in October 1969. This was probably the wildest looking pub ever. It was so close to the California Ballroom when radio mics first came out we went and had a pint in the Windsock as way of checking the range of the receivers. Probably messed up every taxi, fire engine and police car for a hour or two....

Source: Pete Farley

A detailed history of The Windsock can be found here.

Geoff Smith (February 2023)

When I first saw it I though it was a church with those two great rocking roofs. It’s not; it’s a pub. And although inside it’s not as dramatic because you can’t see right up into the timber work in there, it certainly had an enormous amount of fun outside. There should be far more buildings like this. We sometimes go in for odd shapes but dead serious about them like some of the new university buildings, but this is just having a laugh and a good thing too. Especially in things like new shopping precincts. One building like this could revitalise the whole thing. It could indeed revitalise the one rather limp one in the middle of Dunstable itself because there the focal point is just a bit of abstract sculpture. It would have been so much better if something like this would have been the focal point.

Ian Nairn, Nairn Across Britain, BBC 1972

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