Penruddock Village Hall
Est 1905
The Beginnings
During the year 1903 William Hall architects were tasked to draw up plans for a public room to serve the communities of Penruddock and district. The following year, a draft conveyance was drawn up naming 10 Trustee’s, who were tasked to obtain public subscription for the ‘erection of a building to be used as a reading & recreation room for the use and benefit of the residents of Penruddock and neighbourhood’.
Many historic documents have survived from the original beginnings of The ‘Reading and Recreation room’, enabling a brief pictorial history to be produced and displayed here.
Deeds and Drawings
This copy of the conveyance document was retyped from the original in 1976 by Mr Pete Williams, the head teacher of Penruddock School at that time.
Conveyancing Document
Architectural Drawings
The original plans for Penruddock village hall, referred to as ‘Public reading and smoke rooms’. Possibly a title that would not make it through censorship today. The North view from what is now the School field, showing the 3 original chimneys.
Dated 1905, this plan appears to have been an update and working document with many notes and possible alterations pencilled onto it. The outdoor WC would not be too inviting on cold winter nights, but getting back into the hall to the nice warm coal fires may have made it more bearable.
No records have been found relating to the actual time frame or construction of the building, but the dates on the plans would indicate that it may have been around two years.
By 1930, the success of the village hall was such that enlarging the building to accommodate indoor toilet and a solid fuel heating system was proposed.
This was to be done by extending the building foot print to the school boundary and creating an upper floor to house a ladies WC. Despite the plan showing a girder being in- stalled over the supper room to support a second floor, it does not show any plan for the Snooker room (currently the meeting room) that was added at around the same time.
A new entrance and Gents toilets were also part of this project, and were included by ex- tending the original main hall entrance Eastwards, closing off the original internal doors, and making a new internal access in the center of the main room, as it is today.
As the plan states that it is for ‘Proposed alterations’, it is possible that they were updated to include the Snooker room.
Extensions and Alterations
Various alterations and improvements took place over the following 60 years including installation of electric bar heaters around the perimeter of the main room, a kitchen, a large mirror ball light and fluorescent ceiling lights in the main hall, a new fixed stage with a hinged front section that could be lifted to increase the stage area when dramatic pro- ductions were being performed, infra red heating, and new windows.
Following the millennium, It was felt that some areas of the hall were in need of attention to ensure that it met various current safety standards, the most important being fire safety and hygiene. Also at this time, grant funding was available for the installation of Solar Voltaic generators in charity venues.
With this in mind, in 2011 the management committee secured the required funding and had a 55 panel system built into the South facing roof, the main advantage of this being to offset the energy usage and hopefully contribute to fundraising via the feed in tariff attached to the installation.
It became apparent that many of the renovations and upgrades that the hall needed would require additional funding beyond that which could be raised locally through functions and raffles, and in order to be able to achieve this the hall successfully applied for and attained charitable status.
This proved to be invaluable, as over the next 10 years, over £100,000 had to be raised to carry out the improvements that would take place.
2011 also saw an upgrade to the electrical installation comprising of a new distribution board in the upstairs ladies powder room, and this year saw the beginning of many other major upgrades to the hall.
For many years storage of equipment had been a problem for users of the hall, with tables and chairs having to be stored either in the main or reading rooms. The solution to this would be to have a specific store for village hall and regular users equipment. It was also apparent that the hall was losing out by not having sufficient floor space or environment for users looking to hire the hall for indoor sports or other events needing a large floor area. The extension would also house new male, female, and disabled toilets.
The management committee spent considerable time sourcing grant funding and securing planning permission to extend the hall into the adjoining school playing field and eventually in 2012, had acquired a sufficient amount to begin the largest project on the hall for 70 years.
Building of the Extension
Interior Renovations
Internal work on the same project consisted of removing the fixed staging, converting an existing window into an access door into the new store room, replacing the main hall and reading room floors, and replacing the fluorescent lighting with high lumen sports grade lighting.
A new Kitchen
In 2014 the village hall management committee successfully secured further grant funding to enlarge and refurbish the kitchen. The existing kitchen had been in fuse for many years and did not meet current Hygiene regulations for public buildings.
Following the construction of the new store room and toilets, the small store at the rear of the kitchen was no longer needed, so the redundant space became part of the new kitchen.
The Reading Room Revamp
With the main hall, new toilets & store, and kitchen projects complete, the committee were now looking to improve the upstairs room that had originally been the snooker room, with a full sized snooker table, overhead light and scoreboard. The snooker table had been sold during the 1970s due to lack of use, and replaced with a pool table, as pool became very popular at that time. But by the late 1980s the pool table was never used either, so it too was sold and the room then used as a meeting room.
By 2015, the room was getting very tatty and had a number of roof leaks that were making it damp. Damp was also affecting the reading room / kitchen dividing wall due to the blocked off fireplace, which had been removed when the extension and floor were done, so in an attempt to resolve all these issues, it was decided to remove the chimney stack and re-roof the section over the meeting room. More fundraising ensued, along with another successful grant application, and in 2016 the project was carried out.
Once the work on the roof had been completed and the meeting room deemed to be watertight again, focus turned to transforming the room into a smarter and more inviting venue.
More Storage!
By 2016, the hall had many regular user groups who had permission to leave their equipment in the new store room from week to week. This resulted in the room becoming congested, with the village halls own tables, chairs and modular staging sometimes being difficult to get out for use. So another storage facility was deemed to be needed.
The solution was found in the form of the old gents toilets, constructed as part of the 1931 hall extension. These were finally made redundant in 2014 when the new ones were opened in the extension Another round of fundraising and acquisition of more grant funding in 2017, resulted in the conversion of the redundant toilets into a store for some of the village hall chairs.
The importance of fundraising and our volunteers
Penruddock village hall management committee have continually strived to ensure that the hall is kept to required standards and is available for all who wish to hire it for their functions, events and other uses. So to this end, fundraising and community events are a very important part of the management of the hall, a factor that it can be seen has been pursued since the very 1st covenant back in 1903.
It is only through the hard work and dedication of all the previous trustees, committee members, volunteers who turn out to help at fundraisers, and everyone who supports the village hall in their various way, that ensures that it will continue to be the community venue that its has been for the last 119 years.