Bridgerule Village Hall Refurbishment 2010 to 2019

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It took 9 Years but the hall is finished!

The first event to start the hall refurbishment project took place on 9th October 2010

Thanks to a huge £63,466 grant from the Reaching Communities Lottery fund the new roof was finished in 2019 completely transforming the look of the hall and completing the Reurbishment Project

The hall was built in 1955 and it is now a prize asset that we can all be proud of and one that Bridgerule can enjoy for many years to come

Well Done!

With income gradually increasing due to the increased popularity of the hall and some very generous grants coupled with the huge amount of work many volunteers are putting in, the refurbishment is well under way

A new floor was laid in the main hall and the back kitchens were fully refurbished allowing for catering for larger events

THANK YOU to everyone who has helped or donated in any way at all

And thanks also to Donnie Walter for the excellent work he and his team are doing at the hall. Donnie has done all the work at the hall and the standard of his work is superb. If you need a builder please feel free to look around the hall to inspect his work. He takes on jobs of any size and his telephone number is 01409 421685. Thanks Donnie!

If you would like to see some pictures of the work as it progressed click here

June 2016 - The new extension is finished!

The new storage extension was completed and signed off in June 2016

The smart new Table and Chair store has much better access from the hall. The extension also houses a cleaning store and a new back toilet and wash room for the use of people working at the back of the hall during larger functions and concerts

THANK YOU VERY MUCH to Torridge District Council, The Foyle Foundation, Barry Parsons and Devon County Council, The Freemasons, Bridgerule Parish Council, Bridgerule Carnival Committee and Ken James, the Torridge ward councillor for their help with this stage of the refurbishment

A new outside path and barbeque area have now also been completed

2014 - Bridgerule Hall Rocks!

Johnny Cowling is a regular at the hall and his concerts always attract a huge audience

Excellent food, a good bar, an enthusiastic crowd and an incredible venue always make the evening a truly unforgettable experience!

Profits are donated towards the ongoing refurbishent and the proceeds make another huge contribution to the project

Thanks very much to all who work so hard to make these evenings such a success

And thanks to Alec Johnston for this photo of the 2014 event

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Phase 2 - the New Meeting Room, Kitchen and Toilets were Completed in 2014

The new toilets were completed in time for the 2014 revel as planned and the new entrance, meeting room, catering area and all the windows and the outside rendering of the front section were completed by the end of 2014

And that was a very big breakthrough! All the areas visitors to the hall see had been completed and over half of the whole project was complete

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2014 started with some VERY good news!

We were absolutely delighted to be awarded a £10,000 Community Grant by our friends at The Community Council of Devon

CCD have been extremely helpful over the last few years and their advice has been invaluable in helping us to get the project going and by educating us in the preparation of many other succesful grant applications

This Grant, combined with all the other generous grants and donations we we have received enabled us to complete the new toilets, meeting room and foyer this year

We are members of the Community Council of Devon in Exeter. They are the experts on community buildings and members of their team have visited Bridgerule to advise us on various matters and we have attended several of their meetings. These meetings include comprehensive guidance on the grant application process

Applying for grants is a long, complicated process and we have to be absolutely ready to proceed when we start our applications. This involves producing a complete business plan detailing everything from projected takings for the new hall, letters of support from the community and coming up with new uses for the new hall

It seems that the team at CCD have answers to all the questions we have and they have already solved all the problems we have come across for other hall committees! We are extremely grateful to them for their assistance. This is not an easy process for people that haven't done it before!

All this information is worth its weight in gold to us - Thanks again CCD!

The Plan is Working!

The main hall has been transformed in to a new modern bright and warm space suitable for all the events held during the year

There are new activities starting all the time

Try your hand at Table Tennis, Zumba, International Dancing, Art and Crafts or come along to the fortnightly Coffee Mornings

The new meeting room and kitchen is ideal for smaller meetings and activities

New Table top sales are now being held on the first Saturday of every month between 2pm and 4pm.

Several peope have already taken advantage of the new improved venue for parties

When we've finished the hall will be up to the standard required for Wedding Receptions and Family Get Togethers

When the inside of the hall is finished we plan to apply for the many grants we have found that will not pay towards rebusrbishments but will, if our applications are succesful, allow us to provide new state of the art light and sound equipment, chairs, tables and better catering equipment. We hope that by retaining the stage the building will again become used for theatrical events, concerts and other entertainment

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Work on Phase 1 was completed in 2013 as planned

The hall was closed for a few weeks from May 2013 then reopened in time for the 2013 revel in July giving many local people their first chance to see what has been going on. The new walls, ceiling and the excellent paint job came in for a lot of praise. We then went on to install the new windows, blinds, guttering and fascia boards and we painted the foyer and put up some pictures of old Bidgerule to make the hall more welcoming in time for the winter

The walls in the main hall have been insulated

A new suspended ceiling has been installed

The electrical system has been modernised ready for future improvements

The main hall and foyer have been painted

The new windows have been fitted

New Guttering and Fascia boards have been fitted

New blinds have been kindly donated by the Bridgerule Theatre Club

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The story so far

Bridgerule Village Hall needed help and it has certainly been forthcoming!

In the 2009 Bridgerule questionnaire conducted as part of the Bridgerule Parish Plan there was a resounding call from the majority of respondents to build a new hall or renovate the existing hall on The Green and the hall committee has been working hard to oblige

It soon became clear that, with the cost of a new hall estimated at well over £500,000 and grant funding becoming ever harder to obtain a full refurbishment of the present hall was the only realistic way forward

Various experts have advised us that the structure of our hall is sound and the good news is that a gradual renovation will allow the hall to continue in use throughout most of the refurbishment enabling us to continually earn money for the next stage

Hopefully, when we have finshed it WILL be a new hall as we plan to gradually replace or renew almost everything - but it may take a little while!

Before even thinking about a renovation we visited halls at Ashwater, Bradford, Chilsworthy, Bradworthy and Woolsery to try to get ideas for a new hall in Bridgerule and we came to the conclusion that the layout of the present hall, although lacking storage and small meeting rooms is still good, but very dated and in urgent need of modernisation

We have abandoned our spending freeze which was intended to save back our money for a new hall and work is now well under way!

Our first responsibility is to keep the building in a safe and usable condition and monthly safety checks are being carried out throughout the building with special attention being given to updating the building to present day safety standards

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Thanks very much to everyone who supports the hall by sponsoring and advertising in the Buzz. £4,000 has been donated by the Buzz to the hall project so far and this support along with many other generous donations and an extremely succesful programme of grant applications means we will be able to start on this years busy schedule of improvements very soon

Thanks to all at Hedley Wood for running 2 Bingo events in support of the hall, the first one raised £185! And thanks to the organisers of the treasure hunt and everyone who took part

We have had some extremely generous donations from many local residents (thank you!) and the September 2013 Gift Day was a great success with over £3,000 being raised

We are delighted and amazed to have received some huge cheques! £5,000 from The Garfield Weston Foundation, £2,000 from the Cooperative Group, £250 from Warburtons, £4,000 from the Trusthouse Charitable Foundation, £1,000 from the Viscount Amory Trust, £600 from the Southwest Foundation and most recently, £4,000 from the Balsdon Trust. Thank you all very much for your support.

The list of thanks keeps getting longer and longer!!

Grateful thanks to everyone who came along to the 2013 Johnny Cowling evening which made us an amazing £1773 in one evening, to Bridgerule Parish Council for their grants of £500 and £1,000 and to the Revel committee for their donation of £500

Thanks to all those that attended the Christmas concert making it such a success and to everyone who helped towards the Waitrose appeal for the hall

Rob Honey kindly donated the proceeds of his 60th birthday party collection to the hall which amounted to an amazing £470 - Thank you!

And to make sure no one is forgotten - Thank you very much to anyone who is helping in any way!

We have taken advice and formed a Company Limited by Guarantee (Company Number 08255689) in preparation for the project so we are now known as Bridgerule Village Hall Ltd

We are also very pleased to announce that our turnover has increased to the point where we must register with the Charity Commission and our application has been accepted. We are now Registered Charity Number 1150738

We have been recognised by HMRC (The Tax Man!) as a charity and this makes our donations worth more as we can use the Gift Aid system to reclaim tax that has been paid on donations

We have registered the hall with Torridge District Council as an entertainment and food production area

We are continually making grant applications which can take from several hours to several days each and a lot of hard work is going in to thinking of new fund raising ideas

Easter 2013 Bingo - the new hall hits the jackpot!

Thanks very much to everyone at Hedley Wood Caravan and Camping Park for their help and hospitality with running an Easter 2013 Bingo event in aid of the hall fund

Members of the hall committee organised the Bingo and the draw and thanks to a good turnout of locals and holiday makers everyone had an enjoyable evening

As always Hedley Wood was an excellent venue with good food, a good bar, and was excellently decorated for the occasion

Why not give them a ring on 01288 381404 and book one of their mouth watering Sunday roasts for the family - you won't be disappointed!

Carols for Christmas 2012

Launceston Male Voice Choir came to the hall on 5th December 2012 for an evening of Christmas carols

There was an excellent attendance and as always, a thoroughly enjoyable evening was had by all

Thanks very much to everyone who took part or helped in any way

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What have we been doing?

We starting by re-examining the idea of building a new hall similar to the one at Chilsworthy as plans for this were submitted but refused in 2004. This was the least expensive option as the plans already existed so we did consider re-applying. The disadvantage was that this involved selling some land as building plots and the idea was shelved in response to calls for more green land in the 2009 Parish Plan questionnaire

When we thought we had a chance of building a new hall we visited halls at Ashwater, Bradford, Chilsworthy, Bradworthy and Woolsery to try to get ideas for a new hall in Bridgerule and we came to the conclusion that the layout of the present hall, although lacking storage and small meeting rooms is still good, but very dated and in urgent need of modernisation

Thanks very much to the hosts at these halls who gave very interesting talks on the whole process from planning, design and obtaining grants to building and managing successful new halls

It certainly seems the effort is well worthwile at the end of the day with smart new halls often running several events at the same time in modern, warm, well insulated meeting rooms and hall areas

October 2010 - Daffodils!

The first event took place within a month of the project starting!

Everyone in the village will have seen the spectacular display of daffodils in the Spring

There should be even more now thanks to the energetic efforts of the group in the photo, under Colin's supervision. Colin is the one standing behind everyone with the big stick

The bulb planting event and barbeque took place on Saturday 9th October 2010 with all profits from the barbeque going to the new hall fund

The event was the first of a series of events already planned to build up the hall renovation funds

40 kgs of bulbs were planted and a good day and a very good turnout made the event a real success

The First Grand Opening - 1956!

In 1955 the people of Bridgerule got together and built a new modern Parish hall

We have a photo taken at a very early stage in the building, probably in 1956 and a photo of the grand opening but we would really like some photos of the building in progress

We would also like some photos of the hall in use to show its popularity. Please email them to us

We are now trying to bring the hall into the 21st Century! If you can help in any way please email us

Please email any comments, suggestions, news, photos or announcements to info@bridgerule.co.uk