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Civic Society Newsletter - Spring 2004 |
Taste in architecture, as in many things, is subjective and what appeals to one person is another’s pet hate. If pushed to choose a favourite building in Tunbridge Wells my choice would be the Great Hall – although in 1997 Frank Chapman described it in The Courier as having “a clumsy Victorian design of uncompromising ugliness”.
When the “New Public Rooms” opened in 1872, The Builder described the architectural style as “Byzantine”. Today the influence seen in the Great Hall is usually referred to as the French Empire style – a sort of modest version of the Louvre extension. The design is usually said to be by H.H. Cronk but both The Builder and the Tunbridge Wells Journal attribute it to Messrs Wilson and Wilcox of Bath. Certainly it was Messrs Willicombe and Oakley who built it, at the cost of £11,000. The two wings had Mansard roofs (a roof having two slopes on each face: the lower one very steep and the upper one of low pitch) crowned with ornamental railings. The central façade was originally set further back than today and had a grand porte-cochere (a large porch to shelter people alighting from carriages). The Hall was built of white brick with Bath stone settings. The design was chosen from among eleven sets of plans originally submitted to the Committee of the Public Hall Company in 1862, but seems to have been odds-on favourite from the start. At its opening the Hall was rather disparagingly described by the Tunbridge Wells Journal as “having been placed in a hole” and therefore presenting a “somewhat squatty appearance”. However the report did go on to extol the pilasters with richly carved vases, keystones of appropriate style and the “tastily moulded bases” of the circular headed windows. The roofs had ornamental bands of green.
The North wing was originally taken by the photographers Robinson and Cherrill (late of Upper Grosvenor Road, it will be remembered), who erected additional glass houses round the side of the building in order to carry on business on a larger scale. The other wing was taken by the proprietor of the Clarence Hotel, Mr Terry, as a restaurant and coffee room. The Hall itself was 100 feet long, 42 feet wide and 35 feet high and had a large central gilt chandelier with 63 gas jets. The panelled ceiling and walls were lavishly decorated. It must have looked grand indeed, though perhaps a little heavy for modern taste. Upstairs were a clubroom, a reading room, a billiard room and a library, all reached by a handsome staircase.
In its early years the Great Hall was put to various uses – the Wesleyan Methodists held services there while their chapel was being built and Messrs. Poole and Young provided entertainment in the form of painted panoramas of Paris and other European cities. Subsequently various cultural events took place – plays, concerts, popular readings (by Mrs Scott Siddon for example) and lectures (including Stanley the explorer). The exclusive Tunbridge Wells Club (gentlemen of the aristocracy only) occupied the upper rooms.
The Great Hall Restaurant almost came to an untimely end in 1887 when a passing policeman spotted smoke issuing from the fanlight of the bar door. Fighting his way through thick smoke he found the coconut matting and the floor boards on fire. A couple of buckets of water did the trick, though the floor had burned through.
By the 1920’s the future of the Great Hall had become a question of heated debate in Council meetings. The leasehold had been bought by V.M. Worsdale, who was accused of having bought it over the heads of the Council. He said he was willing to consider enlarging the Hall to accommodate more people and to let it to the Corporation for the season at a fair rent. He would have liked them to sell him their freehold interest but the idea was rejected in favour of building the Calverley Grounds Pavilion.
By this time a cinema had been opened in the Hall, which lasted through until the late 1950’s. In 1928 the Council again debated an offer for the property of £18,000 when the leasehold interests were for sale. Cllr Snell contended that it was an unjustifiable speculation and Cllr. Gower agreed with him. Cllr Weeks said they should buy the place and have done with it but the opportunity was not pursued at that time.
In 1943 real-life drama almost excelled the thrills of the gangster movies when, during the screening of “Pardon my stripes”, a soldier asked the cashier whether she had any cigarettes for sale. While her attention was distracted he broke the glass of the pay box window with a rock and grabbed two bundles of notes. The Commissionaire gave chase but the soldier and two accomplices slammed a door in his face and vanished into the black-out.
The 1948 Kelly Directory lists the occupants of the Great Hall as being the Clarendon Hotel, the Great Hall Cinema, the Kent and Sussex Club Ltd and the auctioneers Richardson & Pierce Ltd. The Cinema, which was called The Roxy from 1955, closed around 1959 and the Court School of Dancing took over the main Hall.
By 1972 the Great Hall was beginning to get dilapidated, but it was still occupied by the Court School of Dancing, the Clarendon Bar, the Kent and Sussex Club and various financial offices. As the owner of the site Tunbridge Wells Borough Council intended to lease the ground to a developer. Kent County Council gave permission in August for the Hall to be demolished to make way for a complex of modern shops and offices four storeys tall but the work was delayed by the need to secure an office development permit from the Government. The scheme was keenly opposed by some councillors and a section of the public who wanted the building preserved.
Various plans were discussed during 1973 and 1974, particularly a redevelopment by the Commercial Union, and public objection grew. Pupils of the Court School of Dancing sent in a petition to the Council. Amongst the councillors who opposed the scheme was Cllr. Arthur Cottam who in February 1974 complained that the public were being kept in the dark about what was going on. In the end Whitehall turned down the application for an office Development Permit and the Great Hall re-opened as Carriages Night Club in 1979.
Carriages, developed by Larry and Mike Goodmaker at the cost of £100,000, was plush and exclusive to begin with, but it transpired that local demand was more for disco-type entertainment than for London-style opulence and the brothers adapted accordingly. Dogged by fires right from the beginning Carriages was finally destroyed by what appeared to be an arson attack in September 1980. Demolition and redevelopment were back on the agenda. The Civic Society put up a defence against the former and the Council delayed making a decision until the nature of the Torrington development next to the Central Station became clear. Finally, in November 1983, planning permission was granted to Speyhawk Land and Estates Ltd to redevelop the site, retaining the original façade. The scheme incorporated a Victorian style shopping arcade of twelve units and a multi-storey car park at the rear. The architects were Essex Goodman and Suggitt, who had also designed the Safeways development, and the shopping arcade opened in time for Christmas 1985. A third floor was added to the centre of the façade, increasing office space and arguably improving the proportions of the building, as the flanking wings had always had three storeys (or four if you count the dormer window level).
Personally I always enjoy stepping into our mini Burlington Arcade, which still has a smart, new feel to it – though I rarely venture further than the BBC shop. I think that Speyhawk did an excellent job of rebuilding the burned-out and crumbling shell of the Great Hall in a manner quite in keeping with its grand origins. A crinoline would not look too out of place.
Another view of the Great Hall.