Summary

Memorial Village Hall built in 1929 to the designs of Edward Boardman.

Description

Memorial Village Hall built in 1929 to the designs of Edward Boardman.

MATERIALS: red brick laid in English bond with brick dressings and a pantile roof covering.

PLAN: long rectangular plan consisting of the main hall at the north-east end and catering facilities and WCs at the south-west end.

EXTERIOR: the single-storey building is in a picturesque Tudor style. It has a steeply pitched roof with cogging at the eaves, decorative cresting and kneelered crow-stepped gables which have saddleback coping with a roll moulding along the ridge. The low entrance bay on the north-east gable front has a lean-to roof with kneelered crow-stepping on each side and a central projecting crow-stepped gable. This contains the recessed double-leaf vertical plank door which is reached via two semi-circular steps laid in a decorative brick pattern. The doorway has rusticated brick quoins and a depressed three-centred arch of brick headers and a narrow hoodmould. Above this is a rectangular stone plaque with a segmental top and decorative border inscribed with ‘IN MEMORIAM 1914-1918 LYNTON WHITE INSTITUTE’. The doorway is flanked by two-light casement windows with lozenge shaped metal glazing bars and straight brick arches. Below the right hand window a rectangular stone plaque is inscribed with ‘THIS STONE WAS LAID ON ARMISTICE DAY IN 1929 BY LADY WHITE’ and gives the name of the architect Edward Boardman. A third stone plaque in the gable head is carved with the White family’s coat of arms.

The main element of the hall is divided into five bays by lesenes, the third one on the south-east side rising into a square chimney stack with oversailing brick courses. The bays are lit by large six-light casement windows with lozenge metal glazing bars and a transome. On the south-west gable end, the lower projection that houses the catering facilities has a hipped roof and a square chimney stack rising from the south-west end. It is lit on the north-west side by a six-light window in the same style as the others, whilst the south-east side is lit by an eight-light window and has a vertical plank door on the left. Attached to the south-west end of the hipped projection is an extension, presumably added in the mid-C20 to provide WCs, which has a crenellated parapet with the same capping as the crow-stepped gables. It is lit on the north-west side by two single-light casements, and on the south-west end by a centrally placed single-light casement. To the left of this is a blocked doorway, and to the left again is a vertical plank door with a segmental brick arch.

INTERIOR: this remains in its near original state. The floor of the entrance porch is laid in large red and white quarry tiles. The double-leaf doors have three panels below - two vertical and one horizontal - and four glazed panels above, and have brass drop handles. All the joinery is unpainted. To either side are horizontal wooden mounts for coat pegs but these only remain on the right hand side. The main hall has a segmental arch-shaped ceiling with wide ribs marking the bays and a moulded wooden cornice. It has wooden floorboards and dado panelling with fillets. On the south-east side the opening of the brick fireplace has been blocked. The south-west end is panelled to door height and has a narrow raised platform flanked by five-panelled doors, one panel in each corner with a horizontal one in between. These doors are used throughout the building.

The door on the right leads through to the kitchen which retains the quarry tiled floor and tall built-in dresser/ cupboard which has panelled doors. The door on the left leads into a small room which has wooden floorboards, panelling to mid-height, and a central beam with a roll moulding. There is a corner brick fireplace, which has also been blocked, and two doors in the south-west wall leading to the WCs.

This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 16 June 2017.

History

The village hall was built by Sir Woolmer White Bt of Salle Park to commemorate those who lost their lives during the First World War. The foundation stone was laid in 1929 by Lady White. The plans (held in Norfolk Record Office) were drawn up earlier in the year by Edward Thomas Boardman (1861-1950) of Boardman and Son, a prominent Norwich-based architectural practice founded by Edward Boardman (1833-1910). His son, Edward Thomas, was principally responsible for the buildings designed by the practice in the Edwardian period and he later became Lord Mayor of Norwich in 1905 and High Sheriff of Norfolk in 1933. Boardman and Sons have over thirty listed buildings to their name. Their design for the hall, with its crow-stepped gables, echoes that of the adjacent school which was built in 1864 by the Rev. Sir E. R. Jodrell, the local landowner. In 1946 the White family commissioned Boardman and Son to provide additional facilities to the village hall, presumably the WCs on the south-west gable end.

Reasons for Listing

The memorial village hall, built in 1929 to the designs of Edward Boardman, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architect: it was designed by a well-known provincial architectural practice which became one of the most prolific designers of public and private buildings in and around Norwich for over eighty years, and which is well represented on the List;
* Architectural interest: it is a particularly good example of a village hall in terms of its design quality and distinctive composition, and it thoughtfully echoes the proportions, materials and character of the adjacent Victorian school;
* Interior: it has a simple interior that relies for effect on the graceful curve of the segmental arch-shaped ceiling, the dark band of dado panelling and the bold windows. Such architectural treatment distinguishes it from the more standard form and decoration typical of most village halls;
* Intactness: it remains in almost its original state with plan form, windows, doors, panelling, floorboards and coat pegs intact;
* Historic interest: it commemorates the men of Salle who died in the First World War;
* Group value: it has group value with the Grade I listed church opposite, and, together with the unlisted school, forms an important cluster of buildings of considerable architectural and historical interest.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26677058

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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