PUBLIC HALL CLOCK WINS LOTTERY GRANT
Shirehampton Public Hall is celebrating its centenary year. The year got off to a flying start last October. HRH The Earl of Wessex visited the Hall last October, to mark the centenary of the laying of the foundation stone. He planted a tree in the Millennium Garden, and unveiled a plaque to commemorate his visit.
The Public Hall is a Grade II listed building, which includes the Public Library. This will also celebrate its centenary next year. The building has a tower, with a chiming clock. This is a prominent landmark in Shirehampton. The clock is also one hundred years old, and it has become progressively more difficult to maintain it in recent years.
Shirehampton Public
Hall, showing the clock in the tower on the right
Photo: Alex Wright
The Hall Association is delighted to announce that it is to receive a grant of up to £11,100 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to enable a full professional restoration of the clock. Shirehampton’s own voluntary community newspaper, SHIRE will also contribute to the cost. In addition many volunteers will contribute memories, documents and photographs to an associated history project.
The Tower, showing two
clock faces
Photo:
A.J.Nicholls
The Association will compile a history of
the clock and the Hall, based on documentary evidence and verbal recollections. It held a
preliminary event in November 2003, at which 20 people came with material and stories,
including a lady who told how she had attended school in the Hall in 1918. This has
demonstrated that many local people can contribute to the building=s history. Judy Helme, who
has edited books of recollections of people in Avonmouth, aims to record their stories.
The construction of the Hall has already been well documented by local historian Ralph
Hack.
Commenting on the Heritage Lottery Fund
grant, Association Chair David Thomas said: “We hope to involve many past and present
users of the Hall in the history project. The preliminary event has generated considerable
local interest. We will have further events as part of the research phase. We intend to
publicise the results by holding an exhibition about the Hall and clock, and producing a
booklet as a permanent record. The results will also be included on the existing Public
Hall Association website www.shirepubhall.org.uk.”
The climax of the Hall’s centenary
will be a rededication by Shirehampton’s vicar, Canon Christine Froude, on the
anniversary of the Hall’s opening on 29 September 1904.
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