Harberton Parish Hall - HISTORY
Home Hall
main page Construction gallery
Playing Field gallery
The first hall in Harberton, now the residential property "The Old
Hall", was located in Fore Street and remained in operation until the
1950s(??). The Constitutional Club was built in Tristford Road in 1923, and
comprised snooker room and bar downstairs, a function room upstairs, and
steward's accommodation. The Club closed in 1990(??) prior to residential
development of the entire building, which is now three separate dwellings.
At this time the previous owner of the Club
gave the Parish additional land behind the Club to extend the existing Playing
Field and to accommodate a new village hall, if one was wanted.
Indeed it was! A small, dedicated band of villagers then set about the enormous
task of organising fundraising, employing every means from coffee mornings and
jumble sales to all manner of grant applications and personal interest-free
loans.
Finally sufficient money had been raised and pledged to enable construction of the new Harberton Parish Hall. The first task was to pull the entire hedge bank back away from the road to improve visibility, and to create a vehicle entrance splay.
To satisfy planning requirements and minimise its visual impact, the new hall building needed to be set down as deeply as possible behind the hedge. So a major programme of excavation and earthworks was undertaken. Essentially, a large hole had to be dug for the Hall, and the decision was taken to carry out major levelling of the new enlarged Playing Field at the same time. The topsoil was stripped from most of the ??-acre site, creating "Mount Harberton" at the western end of the Field, which offered unique new views of the village for a short period. Tons of shellit were excavated from the Hall site and from the north-west (top) corner of the Field, and laid down in layers to create a good-sized level Playing Field. The topsoil was then replaced and grass seed eventually sown in May 1996.
The new Parish Hall was "completed" for the official opening by Lord and Lady Harberton on 4 June 1996.