The First Hall

Project was first discussed 1945 to build a Memorial Village Hall in memory of the seven villagers who had been lost in the war. Mr Hedley Musgrave was one of those prominent in the discussions as he had lost his son.

The first start up General Committee Meeting was held at Upper Cheddon Farm home of Mr H Musgrave on Tuesday October 30^th 1945 he was voted in as Chairman, Treasurer Col C D G Lyon, Secretary Mr S E Sampson, with the aim of raising £1000,00. A bank account was to be opened at Somerset and Wilts Savings Bank. There were two sub committees Catering and Social.

The Hon Mrs Portman of Hestercombe House had given her permission for the Reading Room to be used for functions. An appeal to all parishioners to be asked towards funds. Fund raisers were to include Christmas Parties, children's concerts, whist drives, variety concerts, dances.

The first Flower show was held August Bank holiday 1946 was so successful became an annual event and is still going. 1948 saw the first gymkhana held in a field opposite the school by kind permission of Mr H Musgrave in conjunction with the Flower Show but was later split, the Flower show went to last Saturday in July the gymkhana in September. 1954 saw the Gymkhana Televised, the BBC donated two trophies for the gymkhana they are still used to this day for Flower Show trophies.

Raffles were held at all events prizes included a duck, chicken, basket of apples, books, eggs, tea, bottle port or wine, brace of rabbits, bottle of perfume.

A thermometer showing money raised was put up in the post office.

Meetings were held quarterly in various places Upper Cheddon Farm, The Rectory, Rowford School.

By 1950 just over £800 had been raised and when The Hon Mrs Portman passed away she bequeathed the Hestercombe Reading room to the village who sold it to the Crown Commissioners which doubled there savings to almost £2000.00.

The committee decided to approach the Crown Commissioners to find a suitable place to buy a plot of land to build the Hall, that place was Sandilands.

The first meeting to be held in the Hall was 25^th July 1955 it was officially opened by the Bishop of Bath and Wells Dr H W Bradfield Saturday 8^th October 1955.

November 1956 all Hall and Land payments were completed thus concluding the buisness of the start up committee.

At the next meeting December 7^th 1956 Mr H Musgrave was elected as President.

Present Hall

The present hall was built at a cost of £300,000 in 2001.

Present Hall – Recollections of Dr Malcolm Lown (Chair of Trustees 2014 to 2024)

The old hall was a pre-fabricated building and by the late 1990’s was in a state of disrepair. In 1999, the cost of refurbishment was considered to be unviable, and so the idea of a new hall was born.

Andrew Nash joined the trustees, became Chair, and coordinated a massive fund raising mission with the support of Alfred Levy, the then Chair of the Parish Council (PC), who, on their behalf, pledged £20k . The new Nerrols estate gave fuel to the argument re providing community amenities, and helped us secure funding from Taunton Deane BC(~£70k), Somerset CC (~£70k), and the National lottery ( ~£150k), which along with £10k from local fund raising, gave us enough to start the project.

Negotiations regarding the site of the new hall began with the Crown, and we had a face to face meeting at Sandilands with the Crown Estate Commissioner from London. The site owned by the Trustees spanned the carriageway, and was too small to be fit for purpose, so we were offered a deal. If we gave up all the land on the West side of the carriageway,(~ 0.3 acre), the Crown would extend the land we owned on the East side(~0.17 acre), up to a total of 0.75 acre. This was agreed upon, and a site for the new hall was pegged out, and placed into the hands of the solicitors.

Meanwhile, we were given the go ahead to start the hall construction, even though the land had not been officially passed over. D W Harts were appointed as builders, and Peter Moat (Stone & Partners) as Architect, although the external building design was the idea of Ron Burnett, as one which was most in keeping with the local area and environment.

The trustees were split into 2 sub-committees, I was on “building”, headed by Linda Nash, and Marcus Walker headed the “internal “ equipping and furnishing. Under strict supervision from our sub-committees, the hall came in on budget and on time, and was officially opened at the Flower Show in 2002 by the Crown Estate Commissioner from London.

The transfer of land dragged on for several years, not helped by various maps and documents being mislaid by solicitors, and the change of Crown Estate agents from BK to Smith-Gore, who were then taken over by Savills in around 2004. When Dick Macey took over as Chair of trustees in 2010, the situation had not moved forward at all. In fact it had got worse. Savills had no record of any agreement between us and the Crown, and had apparently leased all the land at Sandilands to Hestercombe, apart from the land we owned and the land we occupied,(of which we owned only a part), Dick decided that enough was enough, and that this issue had being going on for too long , and we needed to move on. So he agreed a plan with Savills to cede the land on the West of the carriageway, in exchange for all the land we were occupying on the East, leaving us with 0.66 acre, (0.1 acre less than promised). Although some disquiet was heard, the papers were drawn up, signed, and sent off to the solicitors in 2014.

I took over as Chair in November 2014, thinking that this deal was done and dusted. In the years up to 2018, we were under a lot of pressure from Hestercombe re overflow parking from busy events at the Hall spilling onto the verges on the West of the carriageway. So I decided to try and negotiate a small piece of extra land from the Crown. I was told by Savills that they would try but the land was already leased to Hestercombe, and potentially being sold to them so any renegotiation may be difficult, however they said they would get back to us. I then contacted our solicitors informing them of this and asked them to look into this, and was told a few weeks later, much to my astonishment, disbelief and joy, that they could find no record of the land swap deal in 2014, ever going to completion. They were told by the Crown Solicitors (CWC), that the papers had got “lost in the post”. So suddenly, we are back to square one, just owning 0.47 acre bought in 1957. I confirmed this with Savills.

All the land at Sandilands had by this time been sold to Hestercombe, apart from the land on the West(0.33 acre) that we still owned, and all the land on the East that we occupied, but only partly owned. (0.66 acre). The Crown agreed that the best policy now would be for them to sell to us the land that we occupied, but didn’t own, and this was completed in 2020, leaving us with a total area of just under 1 acre, a brilliant result.