Do you remember good times in the White Hall? Do you care about celebrating what’s good in our community? Sadly, the White Hall is set for demolition this autumn and we’d like to celebrate all this community hub has meant over the generations in Southmead.
How are we celebrating it? We’re holding a special service on Sunday 20th Nov, at 10am, in St Stephen’s Church. This is a chance to hear people sharing their memories from the decades of the White Hall – and you can share yours if you like! There’ll be a display of pictures and stories and other bits and pieces from over the years.
This display of White Hall memories will be up at St Stephen’s for the duration of the demolition. We’d especially welcome everyone to join us for our Friendship Cafe, every Wednesday, from 10-12am. The Church will be open at this time for anyone who’d like to come along and soak up all the memories, stories, pictures, and other bits of information.
Why is the White Hall being demolished? It was condemned many years ago as unfit for public use. This meant no-one could get public liability insurance to open it to the public again. As the building itself is of ‘non-standard’ construction – meaning it was built so long ago that its particular design is no longer deemed sufficient – it would also unfortunately never get a mortgage or public funding to restore it. We were recently told it would take £100,000.00 – £150,000.00 to fully restore to a safe usable standard (and this was pre-Covid pricing!).
As it would never qualify for public funding and no-one would donate such a huge amount to such an old building of non-standard construction (especially when there are so many other good public buildings and facilities in Southmead – lucky us!) we took the tough decision to sell the White Hall to Bristol City Council for demolition. We believe the long term plan is for homes to be built on the site by Bristol City Council in line with their regeneration plan for the area.
We know this is a truly sad loss to the community, but we really wanted to celebrate what a wonderful blessing this community hub has been for Southmead. Do come along and share your stories of the good times, we’d love to mark this significant event in the life of this community with you.
For more information, do get in touch –
- Revd Jon Roberts, tel: 07980 929302, email: revjonroberts@gmail.com
- St Stephen’s Church Office, tel: 0117 959 1250,email: enquiriesststephenssouthmead@gmail.com
