The address of the Village Hall is Brownbread Street, Ashburnham, TN33 9NX. For users of the app What3Words the three words are satin.skews.ropes. The Village Hall is regularly used by the Table Tennis group and the newly formed indoor bowls group (see pictures below).
What’s new
Most of the old wooden trestle tables have been consigned to the bonfire! Most of the tables are now the modern GOPAK variety found in most church halls.
All the old plastic chairs have gone too and we have 100 new (new to us) chairs courtesy of Appledore Village Hall who were undertaking a major renovation of their hall.
The redecoration of the small meeting room was completed in 2016 thanks to the good offices of the W.I. who not only provided materials and labour but also managed to renew the curtains too! Well done, W.I., and many thanks.
Facilities
- main hall (16m x 7m)
- small hall (8m x 5.8m)
- toilets
- 60 chairs, 8 GOPAK tables @ 2ft x 3ft and 12 @ 2ft x 6ft
- can seat up to 90 people (theatre style)
- kitchen with cups, plates, cutlery, urn, coffee machine, cooker.
Charges
Charges for the hire of the village hall are per session. A session is either morning, afternoon or evening. The standard charge from 1st April 2023 is £70 per session with a 50% reduction for parish residents. For village groups meeting on a regular basis the charge is £20 per session.
Bookings
For enquiries about availability and to make a booking, please contact Robin Ratcliffe on 01424 892674 or robin.ratcliffe@btopenworld.com
Finance and governance
Since November 2022 the parish council became Sole Managing Trustee. The building was the former school which closed in the 1960’s. In 1963 the Revd John Bickersteth, who inherited the building together with the entire Ashburnham Estate from Lady Catherine Ashburnham (1890-1953) gifted the building (minus the integral School House) to the village for use as a village hall. The building was conveyed to the Parish Council as Custodian Trustee but ownership reverts to the Estate should the building no longer be used as a village hall. The conveyance created a charity (number 305160) and a management committee whose members were also charity trustees. In November 2022 trustee numbers had dwindled and no new members could be found and so the final act of the management committee was to appoint the Parish Council as Sole Managing Trustee.
Like many village halls the finances are precarious, but sometime in the 1990’s a group of people set up the Ashhburnham Village Hall Appeal fund to raise money for the maintenance of the village hall. More at