Hartington Village Hall
By Richard Gregory
The 1920s
Perry’s Room – The origins of the Village Hall – Its Early Purpose and Probable Use
Background
The Buxton Advertiser newspaper, in a cutting from a ’50 Years Ago’ column dated 4-11-76, reported the opening of Perry’s Room, Hartington in 1926. Victor Thomas Perry was described as a ‘merchant and grocer’ who lived in Buxton and, at this time, owned and ran what is now The Village Stores in Hartington.
In 1925 he had purchased the land on which the Village Hall now stands from Francis William Green of the Treasurers House in the City of York, described in the conveyance as an area of ‘27 perches or thereabouts’, and in general terms ‘as the Carriage House Barn and Gardens in the centre of the Village of Hartington’. More precisely, it comprised a stoned and tiled stable paint shop, four-bay store shed, two-bay store shed, two trap sheds with joiners shop over and a ‘large yard’. We know all these details and, importantly, the date [1925], from a copy of the conveyance held by the VH.
We know that Mr Perry converted one of those buildings into a bakehouse for making bread for sale in the Stores. It is possible [there is no conclusive certainty] that this was downstairs in one of the two former trap sheds and that the ‘Perry’s Room’ described in the 1926 newspaper cutting was upstairs in the old joiners shop [or, maybe, vice versa]. Mr Perry’s stated objective was that the Room should be a silent picture house and a ‘place of amusement’. A memory which has been passed down is that of Nona Greatbach [1904 – 1991] playing the piano during screenings of silent movies, but there is no evidence or suggested other use of the buildings from that time.
The 1930s
The Amusement Hall – entertainments featured strongly, and were always well-supported; Dances, Concerts, Theatrical Presentations, the first screening of a ‘Talkie’ Film, and even Boxing!
Background
In 1929 Mr Perry sold his Hartington Stores business to the Derwent Valley Co-operative Society. In the following year he sold to the same Society a small area of the land purchased in 1925, with a building described as a ‘garage’ [this may be the garage which still stands, on the north side of the bakehouse, but I do not know]. In 1930 he also concluded a lease, at £16 per annum, for the Co-op to use the bakehouse to continue making bread for sale in the Stores, but there is no known evidence to tell us what was going on in Perry’s Room [or, indeed, where this ‘Room’ was actually located], but we might assume that it continued as a silent movie house.
What happened to all the other buildings described in the 1925 conveyance details? Perhaps they were demolished to make space for construction of the Amusement Hall, or perhaps the Hall was built in the ‘large yard’, but there’s no evidence I am aware of which might clear up this knowledge gap.
The next ‘hard’ evidence occurs in John Sherratt’s diary entry for 5-11-1933, which reads; ‘Bert Ellis opened Perry’s room (now Village Hall) with a dance 110 present’. It is an entry that has caused some confusion! [1] The bracketed phrase (now Village Hall) has the date ‘1976’ inserted above it, when John is thought to have reviewed his diary and added that phrase, amongst others. [2] John also refers to Perry’s Room being opened; almost certainly, he meant The Amusement Hall, for he calls it by that name in diary entries which follow. [3] There are photographs of the 110 people, but on the reverse side they often state ‘Opening of V. Hall, 1920s’. It is suggested that the photographs showing the 110 people present must surely have been taken in what we assume was the newly built Amusement Hall at the opening in November 1933, for the pictures illustrate a substantial space looking very much like the present-day interior framework of the Village Hall.
There are no documents that have come to light that confirm precisely when the Amusement Hall was constructed, which is frustrating. John’s diary entry in November 1933 is the first known written reference. It seems unequivocal: the Amusement Hall was opened on 5-11-1933. We can only surmise that it was built in the period after 1930?
Some examples of ‘entertainments’ in the Amusement Hall.
1/1/1934. Dance.
17/1/1934. Boxing.
13/2/1934. Operetta [‘raging success, 300 present’].
26/2/1934. Brittania Players, all week.
29 and 30/6/1934. Childrens Operetta, [‘great success’, ‘crowded’].
9 and 10/10/1934. Zurika The Gipsy Maid – Operetta [‘crowded house on 10’].
These events, along with the title ‘Amusement Hall’, suggests to me that these entertainments were a semi-commercial operation on the part of Mr Perry [we don’t know for sure]. However there were known to have been at least two charity/ community events in 1933 – 4, a ‘Great Sale of Work and Concert in aid of church roof repairs’ [18-11-1933] and a dance, with a band from Leek, coloured lights, snowstorms [!] organised by the head teacher at the school, Mr Noton, to raise funds for the childrens Christmas Party [12-12-1934].
The entertainments continued through these early years of the Amusement Hall, including the first occasion of a ‘talkie’ film ‘The Camels are Coming’ in 1936. I can list more of them if required, but you get the idea of what the Hall was used for in the years leading up to WW2.
The 1940s
The Amusement Hall becomes The Village Hall. The run of ‘entertainments’ understandably stops for much of WW2 when the Hall was used for Royal Observer Corps Training plus some fund-raising events. After WW2: Saturday Night Dances. School use.
Background
The title changed to ‘The Village Hall’ when the community, early in 1944, had raised enough money to buy it for £1250-00 from Mr Perry, who by this time was living in Hampshire. Bert Ellis, mentioned as opening the Hall on 5-11-1933, was a leading figure in the fund-raising task; his brother Walter was one of the first trustees, together with the Reverend Alfred Hewitt and Gervase James [Jim] Brindley. The first general meeting of the Trustees/Committee of Management was held in September 1943 and the premises formally became the Village Hall in the spring of 1944. The bakehouse continued to supply bread for the Stores, so was not part of the Hall.
We have photos of the Amusement Hall being used for training members of the Royal Observer Corps [ROC], Hartington branch, one of 500 scattered around the UK. The actual observation post was situated due south of the Hall, on a high point adjacent to Reynards Lane [known as Castle Hill]. The photos show various devices in the Village Hall, some suspended from the ceiling, to train members in how to identify passing aircraft, to estimate their speed and direction, etc. It is not known for how long the ROC made use of the Hall, but probably for much of the War.
In addition, during Wartime, the Hall was used for fund-raising events, especially from 1943 onwards, as optimism for an Allied victory developed. There was a ‘big crowd’ at a dance on 28 April, and a Bring and Buy Sale on June 25, ‘proceeds towards buying the place’. These efforts did not raise the £1250 purchase price there and then, but the Ellis family were thought to have made a substantial donation, with Mr Walter Ellis lending the amount required to pay the balance [see below].
At the same time as the community were contributing towards the purchase of the Hall, they enthusiastically supported ‘Wings for Victory Week’, 8 – 15 May 1943 [a national effort to help finance the construction of more military aircraft], with well-supported events [one was a ‘Mile of Pennies’] every one of those days in Hartington, many utilising the Amusement Hall.
After World War Two a village dance band was formed – Birches Band – made up of Margaret Riley, Harold Birch, Walter Birch, and Dorothy Birch playing a variety of instruments, some said to have been home-made, which included piano, violin, Hawaiian guitar, cello, and drums. The dances became a regular packed-out feature of Saturday nights in the late 1940s, attracting dancers to the Village Hall from the surrounding villages and Buxton, plus locally stationed RAF personnel. The primary aim was to raise funds for the Village Hall purchase [ie. paying off Walter Ellis’ loan].
The other notable use of the Hall in the 1940s and into the 1950s was by Hartington School, which was using the Amusement Hall as an ‘overflow’ in 1941. The School was over-crowded with 90 – 100 pupils, especially in the early years of WW2, supplemented by evacuees [many of those had gone back home by 1941], but 70 – 80 pupils was a typical figure during this decade. There was simply not enough room in the school, and on days when the normal routine was broken [eg. medical inspections, P.T. lessons] the Village Hall was utilised. A particular period of disruption commenced in August 1946, when an extension was built to house a kitchen and cloakrooms. The work was due to be completed by November 4 but went on to the middle of September 1947! Materials were in short supply, the contractors often went awol, there was the hard winter of 1947, followed by flooding, so it seems the School was a cold, damp, dirty building site. There were lengthy periods throughout 1946-7 when the School transferred en masse to the Village Hall.
[In July 1950 the whole School evacuated to the Village Hall while the furnace chimney, which had developed cracks, was taken down and rebuilt. Another period of disruption occurred in 1963 – 65, when a new back retaining wall plus new playground was built, and the old toilets removed, ‘constant dust, noise and slow progress’ and, again, the Village Hall often hosted lessons; but this appears to be the last time the Village Hall was so used.]
1950s and 1960s
‘Entertainments’ were a feature, but generally more of the ‘home-grown’ variety compared with the 1930s. Wilfred Pickles brings his show to Hartington.
Background
Dances were again popular in the early part of the decade; a weekly dance club was established in 1948 [is this date correct?] which still flourishes today, but there were plenty more excuses for a dance. Dances were held, for example, to elect Hartington’s Carnival Queen, which was in turn the excuse for the ‘big day’ each August, the grand crowning, which often occurred in the Village Hall. The Duke of Devonshire crowned the Carnival Queen, Dorothy Jones, in 1953 [Coronation Year]. Carnival had been revived in 1948, by the Hartington branch of the British Legion, but was held for the last time in 1957; many in the community lost interest in both dancing and carnival [the final Queen wasn’t from Hartington!], immersed, it is claimed, in that new form of home-based entertainment, television.
Another well-remembered feature of the 1950s were the amateur dramatics of the Beresford Players, which staged two or three productions each year during the decade, probably less in the 60s; the final recorded production, The Ghost of Admiral Benbow, was in 1964.
In addition to the Players, a Choral Society was formed in 1950 but it appears to have made little use of the Village Hall, practising in School and often performing in musical events away from the village; this group too faded from the scene in the mid-1960s.
Another early-50s group was the Youth Club, [using the Village Hall?] with 45 members recorded in 1952, but no other details.
The undoubted highlight of this era was the presentation from the Village Hall of the Wilfred Pickles show ‘Have a Go’. In the early 1950s, still the pre-television age for most people, the radio, or wireless, was the mass medium with immense, loyal audiences; for example, in 1950 62% of the adult population heard the King’s Christmas Day broadcast at 3 o’clock and it is recorded that two-thirds of them kept the radio on to listen to Wilfred Pickles’ Christmas Party. At that time he and his wife Mabel were undoubtedly at the centre of British popular culture, and the first regular presenters on the BBC with regional [he Yorkshire, she Lancashire] accents.
‘Have a Go’ was one of the most successful radio programmes in BBC history, believed to have attracted audiences of up to 20 million at its peak, which it was at the time it was broadcast from Hartington. It ran for 21 years from 16 September 1946, presented from a different venue each week, and never the same one. The Hartington recording, show no. 214, was scheduled for 6 February 1952 but the death of King George led to its postponement to 15 March; it was broadcast on 9 April. Irene Wibberley [1926 – 2016] remembered doing all the typing for this ‘momentous event in Hartington’. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to suggest it was the 1950s equivalent of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ coming to town [my opinion].
Twenty-five short-listed competitors from the area, which included Biggin, Alstonefield and Ilam, were whittled down to five finalists in less than three hours prior to the commencement of the recording. Mr G. J. Brindley was one finalist and two others were John Oliver and his cousin Dora; she won the ‘jackpot’ of 33/- and two kippers. 300 people were packed into the Village Hall.
See newspaper articles of W Pickles in the village, + pictures + WP song-sheet.
The Village Hall was used for dances in Coronation Year, 1953; the Hartington Coronation Committee 1953 Accounts itemise ‘Hire of Hall for Dances £4-0-0’ and ‘Dance Profit £12-11-6’.
It appears that regular community use of the Village Hall started to decline in the 1960s [can anyone confirm or deny?]. [Compare with decline in Church attendances]. In 1970 a Derbyshire Advertiser newspaper article about life in Hartington reported ‘a general regret in the village at the lack of social activity and a readiness to blame television’. The latter was blamed for many of society’s ills, especially around that time, but it clearly made a difference to how people spent their time.
1970s and 1980s
By this time, ‘entertainments’ were largely gone. The weekly Dance Club was a continuing fixture. The Hall was increasingly used for parties/discos, often associated with 21st/18th birthdays, or similar landmarks. Various pre-school clubs came and went, and in some summer holidays there were holiday clubs of one sort or another. Scouts [and guides/brownies?] started up – when?
Craft fairs, usually on summer Sundays, became a regular feature at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st but these seemed to lose popularity and ceased.
Do we have records/pictures of what happened in the 1977 Silver Jubilee, or other one-off events such as Rev. Prime’s History weekend?
1990s and 2000s
Activities in a similar vein to the 70s and 80s continued, and new activities such as HYPAC and badminton [both still going strong] became established. For a while in the 90s there were jiu jitsu classes for local youngsters, leading to junior black belt standard. Annual/occasional fixtures included harvest suppers, race nights, beetle drives.
In 2002-3, 50 years on, the Beresford Players were revived, under the banner of ‘Curtain Call’, providing plenty of fun and enjoyment for those who particpated, including some from the Players days alongside a number of younger residents.
External use included providing a ‘base’ for the annual Dovedale Dipper marathon-length ‘dash’ or 15km ramble, which began in August 2003 and continues today.
The Hall was substantially re-modelled in 1996, removing the original entrance from the south side to its present position; the east-side extension included the much-needed new toilets and improved the link with the bakehouse [I know the bakehouse ceased to function as a bakery in 1953, but do not know when and how it was incorporated into the Village Hall, became the Parish Council meeting room,etc].
‘Hartington Through the Ages’ exhibition held in 2008 was a great success, capturing the imagination of many residents and generating lots of interest in the heritage; a wealth of photographs, documents, artefacts and memories unearthed.
2010s and 2020s
The Hall ticked along through the 2010s, with most of the usual activities outlined in the previous section; archery featured for a time, and there were several follow-up events/activites/projects generated by the 2008 history exhibition. Additions to the annual fixtures included the Battleback charity band concert, and the Hall was full for the 2012 Golden Jubilee celebrations, with a vast community cake as a centrepiece.
Unfortunately the use made of the Hall by the various groups generated too little income to finance rising running costs combined with increasingly apparent urgent maintenance needs. The Hall, as it turned out, was not far from falling down.
In 2019 new Trustees were elected and a new Management Team established, which drew up a list of priorities, beginning with a new roof. Wildly successful fund-raising events were underpinned by the launch of a lottery, enthusiastically supported by the community, which primarily provided the seed money to attract a raft of grant-aid. New roof was quickly followed by new heating system, by replacement lighting, by new kitchen, by re-furbished toilets, by new windows and doors, by upgraded bakehouse facilities, by redecoration.
All this in the space of less than five years, during which time the Hall attracted a spiralling clientele of new users to add to the more long-established groups. These include the Rural Social Group, French classes, a succession of yoga, pilates and other exercise/fitness groups, table tennis, activity groups for elderly, young and pre-school children, and many more, seemingly evolving organically! We can also mention the increasing number of varied external groups wanting to hire the facilities for their respective activities, including a revival of craft fairs.
The overall result has been that the Hall fabric is now, essentially, sound, as are its finances [there is no debt], while its occupancy and use levels have never been higher than in all its [almost] 100 years.