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Remembered Today:

Drill halls


Graeme Fisher

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Thanks!

(Mike Osborne's book covers drill halls from the 1860s to the present day. I don't possess a copy and I've never looked at one.)

Thanks for the photo and the background detail, Dave. It looks as if its façade (left of pic) might have included some complex brickwork. Heckmondwike also had a massive artillery drill hall. (Link to ILN piece at bottom of page.)

Gwyn

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Gwyn and Graeme

I see the photos in the Geograph article http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/WW1-Great-War-Centenary---Drill-Hallsas a secondary resource to be used by providing a snapshot of the surviving Great War drill halls. The pictures are released under Creative Commons Licences and can be freely re-used with credits by other organisations. There are a few photos for recently demolished and threatened halls.

The article brought a list together and provided an opportunity to draw on a very different group of contributors to mark the Centenary who may not contribute to forums like this.

Look forward to seeing the up-dates to your project.

John M

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post-16373-0-18585200-1431956853_thumb.j

This was the Drill Hall in Queen Street, Lytham, home of 'E' Company, 4th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment.

Demolished in the 1980s.

We unveiled a Blue Plaque on the site in August 2014.

Andy

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  • 1 month later...

I know that you are aware of Sidmouth Drill Hall (1895) and the challenges it faces but I think I may have information you may not possess yet unless my research is being passed on to you by the Drill Hall Hub.

I have been searching the local newspapers and the British Newspaper Archive online and have articles about its opening and what it looked like. I also have photos from old postcards showing original detail. It was a very much more ornate building than the shell it has now been reduced to.

As it is likely that EDDC will resurrect the plans to demolish it and redevelop the area this autumn there is a huge push to redefine the efforts which have been made so far by the people trying to save it. The huge and successful efforts made to link it with the fishing history through out the EU and the links with the University projects need to be matched by an investigation of its place in our military history, and by achievable plans for reuse as a community resource.

The website will be updated as people find time to do so. http://sidmouthdrillhall.com/

I am happy to post all my research on here, or submit it to you in any other way you would like.

In return I would love to have some help in understanding the wider context in which the Drill Halls were created.

Mary

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Hi Mary

Thank you for getting in touch. I have been in intermittent contact with the Sidmouth campaign team since May 2012 and I think I wrote to object to the proposed demolition. I follow your project on Facebook and Twitter. Having said that, I've seen the recent super picture of the hall with the external veranda but not much else and it would be wonderful to see your material.

I can send you a .doc which we sent to the team which successfully saved Westgate Hall in Canterbury for the community. We can add a special page to our website in connection with your campaign, because tour website entry comes high up on a Google search under your own website. Obviously we will help in any way we can: we have a lot of material which isn't yet online.

The email link on the website is live but won't be picked up if Graeme is on his summer holidays, so it would be better to email privately. I'm on Facebook and I've 'liked' the Sidmouth DH FB page so you may have seen https://www.facebook.com/gwyneth.roberts.18 - that may be a way of making contact because you haven't enough posts on this forum to use the private message facility.

Does that help?

I have just come out of hospital and am receiving treatment at home (apart from supposed to be resting) so my responses may not be immediate.

Best wishes

Gwyn

PS Actually I received your email newsletter about the hub this morning!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Gwyn,

Sorry to hear you are not on top form.

I'm glad Matt has shared that image from a postcard I have, I am continually amassing stuff ! I have been very busy recently trying to put something together for him which hopefully he will share.

I am not one of the directors, just a lowly helper, and am not on facebook .... so I suppose I just need to post lots and lots on here until I qualify for PMs!!!! On the other hand I have a dedicated email address which is drill hall at m-t dot me dot uk ( obviously removing spaces, etc) and I am open to being contacted there.

Do you want me to post the pictures on here or send them privately if we establish contact? I am hoping to have a meeting with Matt on Tues to prepare a big push for the Folk festival which the town hosts the first week in August (for over 60 years). We used to have the Drill Hall for some of the dances and concerts and many people have happy memories of it, we need to get those people mobilised.

Matt is intending to upgrade the information on the website and I am sure he would be grateful for anything which raises the profile.

I will try to check back regularly but things are a bit hectic at the moment.

Thank you for your encouraging response.

kind regards, Mary

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Mary

You have 2 posts - you should be able to use PM's now

Keith

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Thanks Keith.

Wish us luck in picking up loads of committed Drill Hall Savers during this week. The Folkies are already thronging and I'm just about to make posters for our front window as our house is on the High Street.

kind regards, Mary

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  • 1 month later...

graham

the ww1 huts project has now started the group of people are taking old drill halls down and are in the process of rebuiding them on a site in

SUFFOLK HAWSTEAD , NEAR BUR ST EDMUNDS SUFFOLK

taff gillingham and friends

ONE HUT OR SHOULD I SAY TWO ARE WHICH ARE JOINED TOGETHER TO MAKE a stage at one end

just do a google search

they are also looking for any WW1 SENTRY HUT

maybe you can help vic hill

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Vic, thanks for that, but they're not taking down old drill halls. Many of these are stone or brick and wouldn't transport anyway. Taff and co are assembling barrack huts - accommodation huts. Here's their video:

https://www.facebook.com/greatwarhuts/videos/vb.945830835450285/1002139059819462/?type=2&theater (If this link doesn't work, there's a link on their Facebook page - below.)

and website:

http://www.greatwarhuts.org/

If you use Facebook you might like to have a look at their page: https://www.facebook.com/greatwarhuts?fref=photo

Gwyn

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi all,

I have just published a page about the Artillery Drill Hall in Bamber Bridge, near Preston.

http://www.southribble-greatwar.com/drill-hall-artillery.html

Thanks.

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  • 1 year later...

"Always Ready" says the last Grantown on Spey Drill Hall was pre-WWI.  If anyone knows Mike Osborne can they tell him that it opened in 1928, also the previous Drill Hall was the Victoria Institute.  I put a reference with the entry on Canmore.

 


 

Edited by mbriscoe
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Sorry - what drill hall do you mean?

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I visited Grantown on Spey in 2007 and took photos. Unfortunately it wasn't possible for me to read the very faint script above the lintel. This was the drill hall on Forest Road.

 

I haven't seen a copy of 'Always Ready' but there are some mistakes in it. As you have a newspaper report it sounds as if the author is mistaken. Some of the Scottish drill halls look older than they are and we hesitated to date a building without evidence. It's good you have commented on Canmore.

 

As far as this project is concerned, it has gone dormant and I have been excluded from it. Of course I'm wounded: I put a huge amount of effort into gathering material, taking photos and getting the thing online. I don't know what will happen in the future, if anything. I have not updated the website, and I have decided to focus on my own interests. If you want to get in touch with Graeme about Grantown there is still an active email link on the website. I don't know whether you will get a reply or not. Sorry to be blunt but it is how it is.

 

Gwyn

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I hadn't seen the project, just photographed a few Drill Halls as I go around but as you say it can be difficult unscrambling the details with all the moves from one location to another.  I bought a copy of Always Ready so I have a portable reference source.  I upload any images to Canmore.

 

I looked up Grantown on Spey Drill Hall again because I had a message through Canmore (though their contact system is not working properly) which said that it had been the fire station until around 1968 - the current one is across the road.

 

There is no mention of use as a Drill Hall when the foundation stone was laid for the Victoria Christian Institute in 1897 so perhaps it took on that role in WWI.  Not found yet where it was before then.

 

 

 

 

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Mbriscoe

I found your photos of Scottish drill halls fascinating. Were you aware of the 5th Scottish Rifles drill hall on West Princes Street Glasgow? I wrote about it in 2012 earlier in this thread HERE post 1124 The actual hall at the back was used for many years by Scottish Ballet for rehearsals, but has now been demolished and replaced by student accommodation. I understand (and hope!) that the magnificent building at the front (essentially the officer's mess) has been retained.

 

Later edit: I have just discovered that 261 West Princes Street has indeed been converted into 103 luxurious-looking  student flats on a site now called The Ballet School, (even though students of all disciplines can live there). The old decaying drill hall at the back has completely gone, but the lovely red sandstone building at the front is listed and has been restored. As I mentioned in a previous post, my grandfather was brought up in a flat a few doors away, and I am pleased that the old drill hall site is enjoying a new lease of life.

 

William

Edited by WilliamRev
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30 minutes ago, WilliamRev said:

Mbriscoe

I found your photos of Scottish drill halls fascinating. Were you aware of the 5th Scottish Rifles drill hall on West Princes Street Glasgow? I wrote about it in 2012 earlier in this thread HERE post 1124 The actual hall at the back was used for many years by Scottish Ballet for rehearsals, but has now been demolished and replaced by student accommodation. I understand (and hope!) that the magnificent building at the front (essentially the officer's mess) has been retained.

 

William

 

I tend to keep well away from Glasgow and Edinburgh!

 

I have been photographing War Memorials (amongst other things), some are on or near Drill Halls so started photographing them also.  I am having to go further now to find 'new' War Memorials but still some Drill Halls with reasonable range.

 

 

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I have photographed drill halls in 34 Scottish towns, which include several in Edinburgh and several in Glasgow. I don't live in or near Scotland so my visits were intermittent. Perhaps they will be of use to someone sometime.

 

I also have quite a few early 20c postcards of Scottish drill halls - again, maybe of use to someone.

 

Gwyn

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2 hours ago, Dragon said:

I have photographed drill halls in 34 Scottish towns, which include several in Edinburgh and several in Glasgow. I don't live in or near Scotland so my visits were intermittent. Perhaps they will be of use to someone sometime.

 

I also have quite a few early 20c postcards of Scottish drill halls - again, maybe of use to someone.

 

Gwyn

 

As I wrote above, I put my images on MyCanmore - if they have a record.  If they do not have a record then I will send in details to them.  It seems the best way to get connected to the official record and make available to researchers.

 

They also go on FLICKR and if in Highland area then added to the Highland HER Group so available to them.

 

I have access to the British Newspaper Archive so I usually try to find more there if can.  I am trying to find when the Victoria Christian Institute was first used in Grantown on Spey and what was used before then.  As always the newspaper accounts tend to take it for granted that local people know where the Drill Hall is in the town!

 

One odd one is Hopeman that just looks like a house and to add to the confusion there is a Memorial Hall nearby which looks more like a Drill Hall!

 

Kyle of Lochalsh is looking rather sad.

 

Just linked more albums to my Collections page

 

 

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Kyle of Lochalsh was looking exactly like that in September 2007. Maybe it's reached the stage where it won't decay any more!

 

Edit. I took that during a trip which included a week at Covesea Lighthouse. I didn't know about Hopeman DH at the time.

 

 

Kyle of Lochalsh.jpg

Edited by Dragon
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I have ben going through newspapers trying to make some sense of Grantown on Spey Drill Hall.

 

I put these notes on MyCanmore

 

Quote

I suspect the Victoria (Christian) Institution by have been used by the Volunteer Battalion but newspaper articles only refer to a 'public hall' up to around 1909 when first mention of the Drill Hall. It does not confirm where it is but think they must be both referring to the Victoria Institution.

In 1900 K Company 3rd Volunteer Battalion Seaforth Highlanders was based in Grantown on Spey.
1901, reference to men marching from "the public hall" to the station
Aberdeen People's Journal - Saturday 13 June 1908 - mentions Territorials "meeting at the Public Hall"
Aberdeen People's Journal - Saturday 20 June 1908 - "paraded at the Public Hall"
Aberdeen Press and Journal - Monday 19 April 1909 - returned to Drill Hall "by way of High Street"
Aberdeen Press and Journal - Wednesday 11 May 1910 - mention of procession forming up at the Victoria Institution and theTerritorials parading to the courthouse but does not confirm it was the Drill Hall.
Aberdeen Press and Journal - Monday 20 April 1914 - reference to drill hall having been "invariably occupied by picture shows"
-

 

K Company do seem to have been in the town before 1900 but found anything about where they were based.  I suspect that from somewhere around then they used the Victoria Institute if not earlier.

 

In 1891 the Strathspey Public Hall seems to have been used - possibly either the present British Legion building or around the same location Canmore ID 278331 .

 

I came across an interesting advert for the army in 1927 with the various pay rates

 

 

Capture.JPG

Edited by mbriscoe
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Fort William Drill Hall


 

Quote

 

The Scotsman - Thursday 07 August 1913
Image © Johnston Press plc

NEW DRILL HALL AT FORT-WILLIAM
A new drill hall , with relative recreation rooms, miniature rifle range , armoury, &c., erected by the War Office at Fort-William for the local Territorial Company, and which has been erected on the spot where the Cameron . Highlanders were originally raised by Alan Cameron , of Erracht, was formally opened yesterday by Colonel D. A. MacFarlane, D. S. O., Commanding the Seaforth and Cameron Brigade. A guard of honour was formed by the company, under the command of Captain Allison, and other officers present besides the Brigadier were Colonel A. Fraser, Commanding the 4th Battalion; Colonel D. W. Cameron of Lochiel, Commanding the 3d Battalion; Major H. Fraser, Major J. Lockie, Major A. C. Miller, and Lieutenant N. B. MacKenzie. A large and representative company filled the ball at a subsequent banquet, when numerous toasts were pledged, and Major H. Fraser was made the recipient of the Territorial Decoration. Both Lochier and the Brigadier complimented the Fort-William Company on its strength and efficiency, and fitting tributes were paid to the fame, traditions, and valour of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders.

 

 

Edited by mbriscoe
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In 2007

Fort William 2 side.jpg

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Just wish I had taken some before it was refurbished or could find them if I did!

 

Fort William Drill Hall

 

There is a Drill Hall marked on the 2nd  Edition OS Map roughly where the West Highland Museum is now.  So there was a Drill Hall because I have found references to election meetings there in 1880 but no location given.

 

The later one was said to have been used as a Gun Operations Room in WWII.

 

 

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