Welcome!
Brill Memorial Hall has been at the heart of our community for over fifty years; a spacious yet friendly venue for weddings and wakes, balls and birthday parties, ceilidhs and concerts, packed public meetings, plays and pantomimes, produce and art shows, talks and films. Our walls have welcomed three generations of Brillites and their friends and families; happy toddlers, sweaty keep-fitters, chilled-out yogis, opinionated politicians - and lots and lots of tea drinkers - but this afternoon all its quiet, so let’s take a quick look round.
The main pubic entrance is a double glazed door off Church Street, leading into a lobby with a framed painting of a young Queen Elizabeth II on horseback. This room is generally part-filled with trestle tables and folding chairs but, once emptied, it’s a nice-sized ticket office or cloakroom. Another set of double doors opens straight into the main hall; a large, light, almost square room, lined with tall windows and fitted with a wonderful sprung floor of golden maple. The toilets are across the hall from the entrance; ladies, gents, and disabled/baby change.
The kitchen (accessed from the main hall) is large and reasonably well equipped with a wide serving counter and generous food preparation area. It’s used during term time to prepare lunches for Oakley and Brill Primary Schools (the flapjack always smells delicious) but is otherwise available to users of the main hall. Beyond the kitchen is a room known as the Old Library, accessed through the green door shown in the picture above. This is now the Parish Office, being the clerical home of Brill Parish Council, The Brill Society and Brill Village Community Herd. The first floor of the old part of the Memorial Hall complex is now divided into offices, presently let to an accountant and a couple of other local businesses.
Vehicle access to the carpark behind the Memorial Hall is down a narrow track by the main entrance. From here, a back door leads into the main hall - but, before we go back in, take a moment to look through the tall trees across the meadow to the the peaceful meadow beyond. The grass-covered earthworks ahead of you probably relate to a royal dwelling on this site in medieval times. It’s rather nice to think that people have been gathering hereabouts to enjoy themselves here for nearly 1000 years!
Sketch of Brill Memorial Hall by local artist Rob Ramsay
Our Story
The old part of Brill Memorial Halls is a Grade II Listed Building dating back to the 1820s. Originally a private residence called Southdene, the house, garden, stables and outbuildings first changed hands in 1916. Three years later, Southdene was bought by Colonel Aubrey Fletcher who, sometime in the next 17 years, permitted part of the building to be used by Brill Working Men’s Club before selling it to Aubrey Fletcher Estates Limited. Also around this time, one of the large ground floor rooms became the Brill Lending Library and a modest hall was built on, accessed through the green door shown in the photo above. Senior Brill resident Pearl Wheeler remembers going to weekly dances in the old hall: “You had to be 12 years old to get in; the hall was decked with coloured lights and Nibbey Payne played the records.” Pearl also recalls an additional door opening onto Church Street - although this was kept closed during dances to stop children sneaking in without paying.
It apparently took several years to convince the Parish Council of the need for a bigger hall. The hall was purchased by Brill Parish Council in 1952 for £1,400 but it was not until 1977 that the old hall was demolished to make way for the new hall we see today.
The 1952 Conveyance between Aubrey Fletcher Estates and Brill Parish Council detailed the purpose of The Institute, as it was then known. We’ve added in a few commas for clarity:
The property […] shall be held upon trust for the purposes of physical and mental training and recreation and social, moral and intellectual development through the medium of reading and recreation rooms, library, lectures, classes, recreations and entertainments or other, as may be found expedient for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Parish of Brill […] and its immediate vicinity without distinction of sex or political, religious or other opinions.
Members of the original governing group in 1952 included representative from three churches, The British Legion, the Brill Horticultural Society, Girl Guides & Brownies, Brill Football Club, Brill Bowls & Tennis Club, Brill Folk-Dancing Group, the Conservative Association - and the Committee of the Labour Party. The Agreement was updated in 2005 to reflect current users of the hall.
Today - and Tomorrow?
There are over 10,000 village halls in England, most managed entirely by volunteers. Many village halls were built in the 1920s; part of a concerted post-war national effort to develop social and educational provision in rural areas. Even today, many village halls are the only place in a small community for people to meet and socialise.
Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE) estimates that 50,000 livelihoods are connected with use of village halls and that 80,000 people regularly volunteer their time to keep these community assets alive. This is not always an easy task; as ACRE says: “Running a hall requires good governance, funding and an ability to negotiate red tape” - especially as many halls are in need of updating to make them fit for the 21st century.
Brill Memorial Hall is still owned by the Parish Council with day-to-day management delegated to the Brill Memorial Hall Management Committee. The Management Committee is now looking to the future; although still clean and secure, the hall’s furniture and fixtures are becoming worn and tired, and plans for a major refurbishment are afoot. The Committee are considering costs and designs, and investigating grant funding - unless a willing benefactor comes forward…
If you’d like to be involved in planning the future of Brill Memorial Hall, please get in touch. We would love to hear from you!
We are very lucky in Brill to have two excellent pubs and a lively Sports & Social Club but these facilities can’t replace our village hall as an inclusive, accessible, reasonably priced, family-friendly venue to celebrate life’s landmarks, exercise mind and body, and escape for a little while from the reality of day-to-day life through music, film and theatre.