The History of Sompting Village Hall
Registered Charity No 305423
West Street, Sompting, West Sussex, BN15 0BE
30.8.10
Sompting Village Hall was built by Henry Peter Crofts,
JP, DL, of Sompting Abbots, in 1889 as reading and recreation rooms for the community. Indeed it was originally and for many years
known simply as the Reading Room. (John
Crofts, a London attorney, had purchased the manor of Sompting Abbots in 1748,
and the estate was extended in 1836 when the Reverend P G Crofts had purchased
the manor of Sompting Peverel. Henry
had inherited much of the estate of his brother John on the latter’s death
without issue.) In those days, Sompting
was for practical purposes divided into east and west; the Reading Room was at
the edge of the eastern part, and what is now Sompting Recreation Ground was
then White Styles Farm.
The building work was “… carried out in a most praiseworthy
manner by Mr C C Cook, builder, of Worthing.”
With walls of knapped flint and Bath stone, the 44 ft long, 22 ft wide
building ousted some inveterate drunks from a run-down area, and instead
provided a comfortable place, out of the weather, heated by a handsome tortoise
stove and brilliantly lit by four large oil lamps, where poorer people could go
to socialize or improve their education and chances in life without having the
temptation and expense of alcohol. A
press report of the opening in November 1889 remarked that “… the temptations
of drink – the curse of rural as well as urban life – will be altogether absent”. But at the opening ceremony, Henry was keen
to move on to toast the new building in a celebratory drink! In the
deferential custom and reporting style of a bygone age, the local press
recorded that “… the villagers assembled … (were of) respectful demeanour and …
clean and respectable appearance, in marked contrast to some audiences of the
working classes in towns.” The ceremony
closed with “… three lusty cheers and …. with much enthusiasm ‘He’s a Jolly
Good Fellow.’ ” Henry nominated six inhabitants of the Parish to preserve good
order and maintain proper rules.
Clockwise from top left: Henry Peter Crofts,
16.12.1818 – 24.6.1890; the inscripted plaque at the entrance to the original Reading
Room but now hidden by the ceiling of the porch; the Hall, from West Street, in
1957* and 2007 (*Note the roof repairs – possibly following the 1941 bomb
damage referred to below)
Henry Crofts, squire of the village, a former High Sheriff
and Deputy Lieutenant of Sussex and President of Worthing Infirmary, died in
1890 at 71, his death being “ … (while) suffering from an affection of the
foot, occasioned to some extent by the application of an ontward remedy for the
treatment of corns, which resulted in blood poisoning.” Henry's widow Ellen, nee Dodson,
lived on until 1916 when she died at 100, having in 1893 added a boys' room in
the north-east corner of the grounds - peacefully away from the main building!
In the early 1890s, entertainment featured heavily in
press reports of goings on at ”The Reading Room”, especially in the winter
months. The Worthing Gazette reported,
on 19 November 1890, “A most successful concert ... the proceeds …being devoted
to the Sunday School Fund.” The Church
Choir Fund would also benefit. There
was a series of fortnightly “Smoking Concerts” at one of which, blissfully
unaffected by the changes in attitudes to smoking and equality which would take
place over the ensuing century, there was “…a vote of thanks … to Mr H
Pullen-Burry for again supplying tobacco, the gift being extended to those who
were on the sick list” but, according to one report, only to the men. God Save the Queen was traditionally sung on
completion. Mr Pullen-Burry was a local
nurseryman, and at one time Sompting’s biggest employer.
An inspection in November 1912 for the purpose of Land Tax
Valuation recorded a combined market value for the land and building of £400,
after inexplicably amending at several strokes of a pen an original valuation
of £720!
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The
valuation report, with a number of downward adjustments |
The Women’s Institute movement, which had originated in
Canada, caught hold in Britain during World War I, as patriotic local women set
up branches in towns and villages. One
such branch was Sompting, which was set up at the then Reading Room on
Armistice Day, 11 November 1918. The
branch celebrated its 90th anniversary at the Hall in 2008, having held every
meeting there and now being our oldest user group by some margin.
The house between the boys' room and the road is where,
according to one local source, a Mrs Heather used to keep untethered
goats. These were something of a
liability due to their habit of head-butting passers-by. The house was for some time a village store,
run by a Mrs Boxall, with big steps at the front. It is reputed to have been small inside, with room for only 2 or
3 people at a time, but stocked most things people wanted. It is now a vicarage.
For some years Sompting C of E School, nearby in Loose Lane
and now Sompting Community Centre, held concerts and some classes at the
Hall. The picture below shows a class
assembled outside the Hall by a Miss Owen, who travelled around different
schools teaching cookery. Illustrating
the changes to fashions in children’s names over the years, the pupils include
Florrie Homewood, Marjorie Kennard, Nancy Hollis, Winnie Bashford, Rosy
Chatfield, Gladys Nye, Violet Beacher (in the sailor suit, and see next but one
paragraph below) and Daisy Evans.
A cookery class
from Sompting C of E School, outside the Hall, c1930
Ed Stringer was a local lad, from one of four unrelated
Stringer families. Still living in Sompting,
he recalls the teachers from the school being, in addition to Miss Finnemore
and all using the Hall from time to time, Miss Dean, Miss Powell, Mr Heath
(Head) and Mrs Bruton (part-time). He
remembers country dancing sessions and variety performances. Also present at the dance sessions was
Dulcie Ball, who was to become Ed’s wife.
The variety evenings were run by a Captain Billy Brewster of the
Salvation Army, who ran a photographic studio in South Farm Road, Worthing.
Sompting lay within the notorious “Bomb Alley” of World War
II, between the south coast and London, where German bombers would unload
unused weapons on the area to do what damage they could and avoid carrying them
back to their bases. In May 1941 the
building suffered significant bomb damage.
The official report indicates severe damage to the roof tiles (see 1957
photograph above) and porch entrance, and much damage to doors and glass, plus
a burst water pipe. The total repair
cost was estimated in the report at £60.8s.0d.
Damage was also suffered by the school and Orchard Cottages; a school
pupil of the time, then Rita Farrow and still living locally today, recalls
that two classrooms were damaged so the Hall was used for all lessons until the
school, which had suffered more, was made safe.
During the war about 20 PoWs were held at a camp on the
south side of West Street, east of what is now Stocks House. Ed Stringer’s father Fred, a grower, made
good use of them on greenhouses at Rectory Farm. Ed started work as a pony boy on the Pullen-Burry estate; the
work was in the family, Ed living in a 4-room tied cottage for which the rent
was 6s per week.
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The
bomb damage report, 1941 – note the reference to Major Tristram
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The 1940s saw the Hall still being used by the school, and
also as a youth club. Pam Bennett
recalls a Brownies group meeting there for many years, including one occasion
when she found herself in hot water for dragging her friend Valerie Parsons
along the floor. Patrick Darlington
recalls the Hall also forming the HQ of the 1st Sompting Scouts,
under a scout master who ran the Broadwater drapers Bernard Baker. A regular visitor for maypole practice in those
days was the young Chris Pennells, son of Violet Beacher, pictured above; he
was later secretary of one of our user groups, Sompting and District Model
Railway Club. The maypole sessions were
under the tutelage of a Miss Finnemore, who used an old wind-up gramophone for
background music. Also at this time
Chris’s dad and others would attend on Fridays to pay into a Christmas Club,
known to some as their Tontine Club, and buy meat pies; the club had previously
run at Bertie Sparks’s farm but had moved to the boys’ room when the Home Guard
needed the farm buildings. The Home
Guard included Ed’s dad, Fred, and brother Ron.
In 1948 the Church Council of St Mary’s offered to take
over the Hall, on condition that it was used only for Church meetings. The committee of the Hall would not agree to
this. In 1949 electricity was
installed, at a cost of £85, to be paid for out of donations, whist drives
etc. The Hall was still known as the
Reading Room, bookcases being all around the walls. Indeed in the 1950s it housed a small lending library; there are
varying reports about whether it was run by the WVS (later WRVS) or was a
branch of Worthing Library. In October
1950 it was agreed to re-name the building the Parish Hall, although an
Ordnance Survey map from 1952 still shows the building as the Reading Room, and
some people still call it that.
In 1953 the Hall was to gifted to the village by Henry Crofts’s grandson, Major Guy
Henry Tristram, Royal Artillery, during his ownership of the
Sompting Estate. Guy was the second son
of Samuel Tristram and Henry’s eldest daughter, Blanche, his elder brother
Lancelot having been killed during World War I. Guy had also served, in France and India. Guy’s vision, which had been mooted as early
as the 1945 Annual Meeting of Sompting Parish Council, was that “the premises
might be put on a better footing whereby more amenities might be enjoyed by
members of the Parish” (report, Worthing Gazette, 14 April).
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Left: The Worthing Gazette, 14 April 1945, reporting Guy
Tristram’s offer being “received with much favour” at the Annual Meeting of
Sompting Parish Council. Right: Major
Guy Henry Tristram, RA, 1888 – 1963 |
Mary Tout recalls square dancing sessions in 1953-4, under
local broadcaster and clothing retailer Paul Plumb; he lived opposite where our
present Secretary grew up in Shoreham, Plumb moving to Wales for many years but
returning to the same property a few years ago. By 1954 Rita Farrow had become Langridge, holding her wedding
reception at the Hall, while Janice Pannell, nee Jordan, reports a
skiffle band playing there: three boys, including one Tony Hobden, from
Berriedale Drive and known as “The Dale Boys”.
Tony’s sisters, Iris and Sylvia, had been among Rita’s pals.
Modern sanitation was installed and an entrance porch
added in 1957 at a cost of £610, with the help of a grant from the Ministry of
Education and a loan from Worthing Rural District Council. The porch has hidden Henry’s foundation stone
from view ever since.
Guy Tristram died in 1963 and lies buried beside his
first wife Ruth in Sompting churchyard. Tristram Close, off Loose Lane leading south from opposite the
Hall, now commemorates the Tristram/Crofts family’s legacy to Sompting. The
conveyance under which Guy gifted the property to a charitable trust
administered by local trustees, embodies the constitution of the charity. In the words of the conveyance, dated 10
October 1953 and unchanged to this day, the property is to be:
“… held upon
trust for the purposes of physical and mental training and recreation and
social, moral and intellectual development through the medium of reading and
recreation rooms, library, lectures, classes, recreations and entertainments or
otherwise as may be found expedient for the benefit of the inhabitants of the
Parish of Sompting in the County of Sussex and its immediate vicinity without
distinction of sex or of political, religious or other opinions subject to the
provisions of these presents.”
Local government re-organisation in 1974 saw the
newly-created Adur District Council taking in Sompting, Lancing and Coombes from the former Worthing
Rural District Council on 1 April of that year. To commemorate the first Annual Meeting of the Council on 30
April, Sompting Village Hall was later awarded the certificate below, which
also recognised the charity’s “valuable services given to the local community”.
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Adur District Council’s recognition of the Hall’s
contribution to the Sompting community |
In 1998 the trustees secured National Lottery funding of
£31,564 for extensive repairs, including stripping and re-tiling the roof, replacing
the oak floor and renovating the outbuildings.
There was a further refurbishment in 2006, providing new toilets, a new
oven and hob, fire-proof curtains and re-decoration, total cost £15,163. As a personal contribution, one of the
trustees, who is still serving, provided the name board seen today on the
outside front wall.
The kitchen and main hall
Sompting’s best known pub, the Marquis of Granby, came
under new management in 2003. To mark
the takeover, the new owners installed a commemorative clock, engraved with a
number of local landmarks including the Hall.
The charity launched its website in August 2007, featuring
as local radio station Splash FM’s Website of the Day on 13 August; the launch
was also reported in the Lancing Herald.
In June of that year the Hall held an “Open Day” as its contribution to
the second annual Sompting Festival.
The event was a great success; its inclusion in the annual Sompting and
Adur Festivals is now an important two-day event in the Hall calendar, the many
visitors seeing both the Hall itself at first hand and several of its regular
users in action. The 2008 event was
notable for a guest appearance by a mysterious shepherd, using his skills to
gather some of those present together in unharmonic song; he bore a strong
resemblance to Mike Tristram, Guy’s grandson, accompanied by his delightful
daughter Hannah on flute and accordion.
Open
Day at Sompting Village Hall, Sun 3 June 2007, during the Sompting Festival. Clockwise from top left: This young lad enjoyed playing trains all
day, as did his friend in the T-shirt (Sompting & District Model Railway
Club); Worthing Edwardians; Rainbow’s End Line Dance Club; the Hall’s own stand
Later in 2008 the Hall became the first community facility
in West Sussex to receive a Hallmark award, under the village halls quality
standards scheme of the same name, and remains the only one in Lancing and
Sompting to have attained Hallmark status.
In the same year the Hall played a prominent role in the regrettably
unsuccessful attempt to save Sompting’s last surviving Post Office, in Bowness
Avenue, from closure, by providing the campaign’s only significant web
coverage.
This history, first published at the charity’s stand at the
2007 Sompting Festival, is being kept up to date as new information, past and
present, becomes available. This
version was the first presentation to the Local History group of the
newly-formed Lancing and Sompting branch of the University of the Third Age on
23 April 2009 held at The Farmers pub in Lancing. There is also a scrap book.
Together these provide a living history of one of Sompting’s most valued
and distinctive institutions.
The Hall’s current regular user bodies include Sompting
Village Morris, model railway societies, a nursery school, dance
clubs, slimming groups and other local recreational groups. Where once stood the boys’ room added by
Ellen Crofts is now a store for three of the user groups. Users enjoy the Hall’s spacious and homely
facilities for constructive, community-based activities at a fraction of the
cost a commercial organisation would charge.
The Hall is also available for occasional and one-off use,
such as for wedding receptions, meetings and exhibitions. Well done,
Henry Peter Crofts and Guy Henry Tristram.
Joe Kirk, Secretary, Sompting Village Hall, 30.8.10