The Hall Through History
If you have any Information, History of the Village and the Hall or just a story about the area in which we live and would like to see it published here, then please contact us with a brief description and your contact details and we will do our best to get it on the website for all to see.
Gardner's Question Time came to Upwell
Back In 2017 the BBC Horticultural panel programme came to visit Upwell Village Hall. Helping answer the audience questions were Bunny Guinness, Bob Flowerdew and Christine Walkden.
They recorded Gardener's Question Time in the Hall to be broadcast on Radio 4.
Local members of the Parish and beyond came to the Hall, seeking answers to their Gardening questions and the panel did not disappoint.
If you would like to listen to the episode, please follow the link below
You may need a BBC Account to use the Sounds App.
Gardeners' Question Time - Upwell - BBC Sounds
The History Of the Hall
The Upwell Hall was built in 1868 by “a number of gentlemen” who formed themselves into the
“Upwell Public Hall Company (Limited)”. The funds for the building, total cost £806, and were
raised by selling shares to local people and by obtaining a mortgage from “a friend”.
The land on which the hall was built was provided by Charles Watson Townley, Esq.
the site being alongside the gravel New Road and in “convenient proximity to the Stables of the Five Bells Inn”.
For many years it was owned by this company and used by the local population.
The main central part of the hall has an impressive, vaulted ceiling and together with the
tower section, constitutes the original building. Over the years a number of extensions have
been added which means the hall now has the benefit of a main dance/meeting hall, a
stage, a bar and seating area, a kitchen, toilets and a modern meeting room.
The hall passed into private hands in 1978 when the company sold it to a Mrs Ann Carter.
She in turn sold it on to Mr Eric St John Foti in 1984. By 1996 the hall had been closed and
was in need of decoration and some renovation. In order to restore the use of the hall to the
local population the Parish Council took the hall for 1 year on a peppercorn lease and set
up a committee of volunteers to run the hall.
After one year the council were convinced of the hall’s viability and its benefit for the local population so it purchased the hall and have been the custodian trustees (for the parishioners of the Parish of Upwell) of the hall ever since, the hall itself being run by the voluntary committee named “Upwell Hall Committee”.
When the committee first took on the hall, with significant fund raising, hard work from
volunteers and some grant aid, they installed a damp course, new windows and
redecorated the interior. Over the years the toilets, kitchen and meeting room have all been
renovated; an area of land behind the building which had been the site of an agricultural
cold store has been transformed into a grassed area with seating and flowers; and the car
parking area was levelled and tarmac was laid.
