Parish Hall, formerly Reading Room, Bushnells Lane, Stanford Dingley. 1903, architect unknown. Red tiled roof. Vitrifed and red brick laid in English bond, with vertical bricks above windows and tiled external window sills. Dentil brick eaves cornices. Single storey, main room with extension at the back for kitchen and facilities. Built as a Reading Room, it has become central to parish and village life through its use as a Boy’s Club in the 1930’s, and then a parish/village hall. No other properties adjoin the hall.
The hall was built by Dr Watney in 1903 as a club or Reading Room for social, educational and religious purposes, and run by the Rector for an annual fee of £1 paid to Dr Watney (of the Watney’s brewery family). It was used for a range of village activities before, during and after WW1. Mill House in Stanford Dingley was the home of photographer Kyrle Leng (1900-1958) and poet and writer Robert Gathorne Hardy (1902-1973) from c1927 to 1958. They organised a Boys Club to keep the young men of the village from frequenting the two pubs in the village and this club also met at the hall.
In 1931 Dr Watney offered for sale all the properties he owned in the village. The hall was offered for sale at a cost of £90, and Kyrle Leng helped purchase the building for the use of the Boys Club, the hall was then run by a group of trustees. There were various restrictions on the sale (no gambling, no alcohol, closed during Sunday services) imposed for the next twenty years. The hall was requisitioned by the War Office from 1941-1945 and the Boys Club closed – although the hall was handed back after the war the Boys Club didn’t reopen.
The hall was used for WI meetings in the 1950’s, and in 1975 it was formally given to the Parish Council. It was refurbished in 1978, and again in 2017 when the facilities were modernised with a Greenham Trust grant. It is very well used for local parish meetings and a number of local events.
HER Ref: MWB21512
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