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Down Ampney Village Hall - A Brief History

The Original Hall (1983)

Down Ampney Village Hall was first built in 1983 with funding from Gloucester Community Council and over 35% from the village and donations. In particular, the Hall received financial support from the Down Ampney Veterans Association [set up at the end of WWII to commemorate the contribution of DA at Arnhem and the D-Day landings.

The Village Hall is owned by the Parish Council who established a separate committee to manage the asset on behalf of the village

The original Hall comprised a main hall, servery, separate committee room and a licensed bar. This gave flexibility to hirers to either hire the whole facility or just part of it with or without the bar included

In 2004 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Arnhem, the Committee room was renamed the Dakota room after the iconic transport plane used in WWII. This room housed many pictures, artefacts and plaques associated with the War and but for the courageous efforts of the Fire Brigade all of them would have been lost in the fire of 2007.

Over the years the Hall became home to a number of Village organisations such as the Gardening Club, the Line Dancing Club, the Toddlers Group and Parish Council meetings to name but just a few and has also been key to creating some clubs such as the Short Mat Bowls Club. In addition the Hall is home to outside organisations such as TAI CHI and Ballroom Dancing. Most of the organisations that had to find another venue after the fire returned when it re-opened in Spring 2009.

The foresight of the Parish Council to have a large central area of the village allocated in the original deed for use by the community meant the Hall always had a large car park with capacity to accommodate over 60 cars to attract large functions. Since 1983 other facilities have been added to this central hub, viz The Tennis Club, a Toddlers’ Play Area and Multi Use Games Area (MUGA).

The existence of the Hall meant that when the privately owned village Shop and Post Office closed, DA was able to set up a Village Post Office in the Village Hall Bar area and the Shop was housed in a porta cabin, sited in the central Hub area near the Hall.

The Fire

In the early hours of August 10th 2007, just days after the floods which affected large parts of the Village, the Village Hall building was burned to the ground through an act of Arson.

This caused much disruption to the community, not only to rebuild the Hall, but to re-house the Under Fives and the Post Office. As ever the community sprit of Down Ampney came to the fore and alternative arrangements were organised within days

The Co-operative Group who own all the estate around the village were approached and they kindly agreed to allow the Post Office to run from one of their properties for a peppercorn rent.
The School Governors and LEA were contacted to get permission for a portable classroom to be sited in the school grounds for the Under 5’s Playgroup use. The playgroup bought the second-hand classroom and many volunteers helped to site it, repair and refurbish it to ensure the playgroup was up and running as soon as possible. Playgroup now has planning permission to remain on the site which is both beneficial to the playgroup and Down Ampney Primary School.

In the interim the village was indebted to Down Ampney Football Club and the School who both provided venues for the activities of the many village clubs and associations.

The Present Hall (2009)

The present hall was rebuilt substantially on the footprint of the first hall, albeit with many improvements. It was officially opened on...

The improvements can be simmarized as:

the addition of an upstairs meeting room, furnished in boardroom style for meetings of up to 12 people
the addition of a modern heat recovery driven heating and air-conditioning system
the provision of a disabled toilet, an induction hearing loop and a stair lift to the upstairs meeting room
the provision of an ethernet to all rooms supported with wireless broadband

The upstairs meeting room is named "The Wynne Room" in commemoration of Willie Wynne who bequeathed some money to the village which was used in the rebuild. The lounge area is named "The Dakota Room" for the reasons set out above.

A feature of the hall is that the Wynne Room can be accessed and let independently from a separate external door.

The Future

The development of the 'hub' was substantially completed with the opening of the Community Shop. The hall is gradually developing its facilities as funds allow. We have recently increased the scope of our Premises Licence to include Theatre and Cinema activities, and now have the necessary video projector and a small screen in the Dakota Room. We shall eventually have a complete AV installation, with provision for larger scale cinema in the hall, and possibly some more sophisticated lighting for the hall to facilitate more arts events.

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