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Civic hall facelift brings back memories
Published Date: Brighouse Echo 28 July 2009
TEN years ago I was writing about the completed and long overdue improvements at the Civic Hall. Recently I had the opportunity of looking inside the long overdue 2009 improvements. The work carried out looks very good and was well worth the wait.
Just as I walked in, the late 1950s came flooding back to me. One of our borough councillors contacted Colonel Tom Parker – the manager of Elvis Presley – to ask for his and Elvis's permission to name a new street in Brighouse after Elvis.
Permission was given straight away but 'Elvis Presley Avenue' never materialised. Ambrose Broomhead proudly displayed the Colonel's reply in a glass display cabinet outside – but over the years it has disappeared.
I have written about the Civic Hall many times, particularly when it was The Savoy, one of the town's three cinemas, or four if you count the old Hipperholme cinema – maybe five if you count the open air cinema they used to have in Wellholme Park and possibly six if you count the one they had at the Empire Theatre in Atlas Mill Road. After the latest improvements it seems the right time to look at the history of this large town centre building.
The Savoy Picture House closed its doors for good in 1959, some 60 years after it first began showing animated pictures to the Brighouse public. From the days after the war when the town's three remaining cinemas provided entertainment six days a week the closure of the Savoy was the start in the general decline in cinema popularity.
The building dates back to 1866 following the formation of the Brighouse Town Hall Company. The objects of the company were laid out in the company's memorandum of association and as far as I am aware there are no surviving copies of this document. However, my research shows not only were they in favour of providing an assembly room suitable and large enough for the district but a building suitable for educational purposes as well. This created a much-needed permanent home for the town's Mechanics Institute which had had a somewhat nomadic existence since it was started in 1846.
The idea of a public hall was taken up by a number of the town's prosperous businessmen including: Sir George Armytage, Kirklees Hall who gave £300; Thomas Sugden of Well Close, £200; Kaye Aspinall, The Manor House, a stone merchant, £500; T. T. Ormerod, Elm Royd (now the nursing home in Brighouse Wood Lane), mill owner £300; David Goldthorpe Sugden, Bonegate House, Brighouse, corn miller, £300; John Carr Bottomley, Stone Leigh House, Halifax Road, a manufacturing chemist, £200; Henry Stott, Ryburn Villa, Brighouse, cotton spinner, £150; J. Barber, Lark Field, Church Lane, Brighouse, gentleman, £100; Henry Sugden, Canal Lodge, Brighouse, cotton spinner, £50; Charles Heward Broughton, Brighouse, iron founder, £50 and John Taylor, Rastrick, farmer, £25 (£2,475).
The Brighouse Town Hall Company was formed in 1866 with a capital of £7,000 divided into £1 shares. The proposal was taken up so well by the public that the new building was officially opened on October 14, 1868, by Sir George Armytage the then chairman of the company, a position he still held some 22 years later.
Towards the end of its life as a cinema the one-time projectionist Mr Ambrose Broomhead had become the manager and I believe had taken the tenancy on the cinema some years earlier. Once the cinema had closed, the building was put up for sale and offered to the council. Being such a large property in the town centre the General Purposes Committee established a sub-committee on November 26, 1959, to investigate the possibility.
After the borough engineer had given a favourable report on the building, the district valuer was asked to enter into negotiations with the owners. The council's value of the property was considerably less than that of the owners; consequently the rounds of financial haggling began.
The council had to apply for loan sanction to buy the former cinema and shops at the eventual agreed price of £20,000. Once the deal was done and the building finally belonged to the council they requested local architects Richard Pickles and Partners to submit plans and sketches of the building for a new use as a Civic Hall, dancing and entertainment purposes. While these were being prepared it was suggested by one councillor that The Ritz would be a more suitable venue for civic hall than the Savoy. In a minority of one his suggestion was thrown out without further discussion.
On October 18, 1961, the first set of plans and sketches were complete and were submitted to the sub-committee the following week only to be told after much consideration to submit a revised set. Looking at my copy of this first set indicates the alterations and conversion to a civic hall would have cost the council £115,760. Further sub-committee meetings during the early part of 1962 followed and on April 9 the final plans and estimates were sent to the General Purposes Committee.
A final decision seemed to be taking for ever. In the meantime local Chamber of Trade secretary Fred Lapish wrote to the town clerk pointing out the former cinema's frontage, particularly the verandah, was untidy – that complaint seems to have a familiar ring about it. Mr Lapish's letter worked because the verandah was taken down and the borough engineer gave instructions that the windows on the frontage should be washed at least one a week. Another letter was received from Waring Green stalwart Jim Mashinter suggesting the former cinema could be used by the Brighouse 'Little Theatre' Group.
The New Year (1963) brought forward one or two more thoughts and decisions. Firstly, the outside of the cinema could now be painted but not the shops, the tenants would have to cover those costs. Secondly, a request that the desires of the Brighouse Children's Theatre to see the public hall idea come to fruition. Next was an offer to run regular Saturday night dances at the hall, and AMF Ltd who wanted to turn it into a tenpin bowling centre – whatever happened to that idea?
Well 1963 came and went the early part of 1964 didn't alter much except it was passed from one committee to another. The Universal Radio, one of the tenanted shops, reported a water leak through the roof, the Prudential terminated their tenancy and the local Liberals took one of the shops on a short-term tease.
Councillors in the meantime went to Northwich U.D.C. to look at their newly-converted Civic Hall from a cinema. Time went on with yet more meetings. The original costings by the architects were now looking a bit over the top compared with the decision that the borough engineer had to produce a feasible plan costing no more than £25,000. Even he had trouble, only to be back several months later with a scheme costing over £27,000, but hopefully a loan from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government would be forthcoming. Surprisingly the borough engineer's proposals were accepted but no work would be started for at least six months.
By January 1967 a private contractor had been asked to put in plans to carry out the necessary work but even his estimates were almost £31,000, outstripping the loan by over £3,000, if it was approved. The big day finally arrived on January 23, 1967, when the old Savoy Cinema was officially given its new title 'The Brighouse Civic Hall' by the local authority and its official opening followed in April 1968
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