Before North Hall
Loxwood already had two earlier meeting places. The Reading Rooms opened in 1897 and included the village’s first library. Clubs and committees used the rooms for meetings and entertainment, and Major Corral Farmer later recalled their importance when he spoke at North Hall’s foundation-stone ceremony forty years later.
A larger Memorial Hut opened opposite the church in 1923. The hall accommodated meetings, clubs and social events that had outgrown the Reading Rooms. Village life also continued outdoors. Photographs of the Silver Jubilee of George V in May 1935 show Union flags above an open field, families gathered for the celebrations and a man carrying a large megaphone while a child stands beside him. A special form of prayer and thanksgiving marked the King’s twenty-five years on the throne.
By the middle of the 1930s Loxwood had its own church, school, recreation ground, sports clubs, shops and meeting places. Civil administration was still shared with Wisborough Green through one Parish Council, an arrangement inherited from the centuries in which Loxwood had been part of the larger parish.
The parish council question
West Sussex County Council considered the division in December 1936. The local inquiry took place in Loxwood at the Old Comrades’ Hut, another name used for the Memorial Hut. Support for a separate Loxwood Parish Council was established at the outset; the detailed discussion concerned the boundary, representation, property and the practical arrangements that would follow separation.
The figures presented to the inquiry described two sizeable villages. The 1931 census recorded 740 people in Loxwood and 1,011 in Wisborough Green. Loxwood had 252 inhabited houses and Wisborough Green 318. Six Loxwood members and seven Wisborough Green members sat on the joint Parish Council. Representation on Petworth Rural District Council stood at one member for Loxwood and two for Wisborough Green.
The rateable value, the assessment used for local rates, was £5,339 for Loxwood and £4,178 for Wisborough Green. A one-penny rate across the existing parish raised about £39.
Four miles of open country
Tim Wyldebore, speaking for Loxwood, described the separation between the two communities. Four miles of open country lay between them, and he said that over the years “a consciousness” had grown up in each village. Loxwood believed it could manage its own affairs.
Loxwood had its own recreation ground, cricket club, football club and tennis club, and the inquiry heard that village interests were already organised separately. A room in Loxwood was available for council meetings. Tim Wyldebore also produced attendance figures for the previous year: Loxwood members had attended 82 per cent of Parish Council meetings and Wisborough Green members 73 per cent.
The proposed boundary followed the existing church boundary, a line familiar locally long before the civil division was considered. The County Council committee also discussed the two recreation grounds and left their legal ownership for the County Council clerk to establish.
The old workhouse question
One practical difficulty concerned the building used for Parish Council business at Wisborough Green. It was the former workhouse, and a room there was also used by the Women’s Institute. The rents from the building were said to do little more than meet upkeep and repairs.
The possibility that Loxwood might claim a financial share prompted the sharpest exchange of the inquiry. A Wisborough Green ratepayer said he would object to separation if Loxwood made a claim on the workhouse. Tim Wyldebore answered that Loxwood did not want the building to become a “stumbling block” in the proposed separation. The County Council clerk said any necessary financial adjustment could be arranged.
The inquiry proposed nine councillors for each of the new Parish Councils. Representation on Petworth Rural District Council would remain at one member for Loxwood and two for Wisborough Green.
The Parish of Loxwood
The decision came early in 1937. On 4 March the West Sussex Gazette reported that Loxwood was to become a separate parish. The West Sussex County Times gave the formal wording the next day: West Sussex County Council had decided to make an order for the formation of a new parish “to be known as the parish of Loxwood”, created from the part of Wisborough Green that formed Loxwood.
The order ended the joint civil parish arrangement with Wisborough Green. Loxwood now had its own civil parish and its own Parish Council, with nine members proposed at the inquiry. Within weeks, work was under way on a purpose-built village hall at the opposite end of the village from the Memorial Hut.
A Coronation gift
Mark Frederick North owned Loxwood House and was known locally as a breeder of Brown Swiss cattle. Early in 1937 he offered the village a site beside Guildford Road and paid for a new hall. His aim was to have it ready for the Coronation of George VI on 12 May.
Architect Claud Kay designed the building with a large main hall, balcony, dressing rooms and a prominent gabled entrance. Contemporary newspaper reports described walls of Rudgwick brick, a tiled roof and oak outside joinery. The finished hall was expected to accommodate about 200 people.
The programme allowed little time for construction. By the beginning of April the walls were standing and roof tiles were being laid. Newspaper reports referred to twenty or thirty men working on the site as the Coronation deadline approached.
The foundation stone, 3 April 1937
Saturday 3 April brought bright sunshine for the foundation-stone ceremony. Photographs show bunting fixed across unfinished brickwork and villagers gathered close to the entrance while building work continued around them. Bare ground, materials and the incomplete upper windows remain visible behind the crowd.
Major Corral Farmer, who had helped with the Reading Rooms forty years earlier and had served on numerous village and church committees, addressed the gathering. He recalled the smaller building that had served Loxwood since the 1890s and said the village had doubled in size during the previous twenty years. North Hall, with room for about 200 people, would meet the needs of a much larger community.
Major Farmer also spoke about services that were expected in Loxwood. North Hall had been fitted with pipes for mains water and wired for electricity in anticipation of both reaching the village. Looking ahead to future changes, he joked that he hoped it would be many years before Loxwood acquired a “super-cinema”.
Miss Slee presented Joy North with a silver trowel from the inhabitants of Loxwood. The inscription recorded the occasion and date, 3 April 1937. Joy North then laid the foundation stone and declared it “well and truly laid”. One speaker drew attention to the speed of the work: only a few weeks earlier the site had been an open field.
Coronation Day
Building continued through April and the first part of May. On Wednesday 12 May 1937 Mrs North formally opened the hall as Britain celebrated the Coronation of George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The building had gone from open ground to a completed village hall within a matter of weeks.
Mains water and electricity reached Loxwood in 1938. The pipes and wiring installed during construction allowed North Hall to connect to the new services. Electric lighting was particularly valuable for evening meetings, concerts and dances in a hall intended for regular village use.
Early use of North Hall
In February 1938 R. G. Blackman’s Popular Concert Party advertised an “attractive concert” to raise money for hall funds. Tickets ranged from threepence to one shilling for the Saturday evening performance.
The following month the West Horsham Group of Women’s Institutes held its annual conference at North Hall. Miss Farmer of Loxwood Women’s Institute welcomed representatives from across the district and told them that this was the first time Loxwood had been able to invite the group because the village had previously lacked a hall suitable for such a gathering.
In March 1939 more than 100 people attended a variety performance by the Petworth “Imps”. Their programme, Petworth Pie, included choruses, short plays, sketches and songs. During the same month the Alfold and Loxwood Horticultural Society held its annual meeting at North Hall and arranged its summer show.
North Hall during the war
During the Second World War the hall served practical as well as social purposes. In June 1943 Ministry of Food arrangements made North Hall the distribution point for new ration books in Loxwood. The temporary office opened from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Thursday 24 June.
Agriculture brought another audience after the war. In November 1948 the National Agricultural Advisory Service advertised a showing of The Science of Milk Production at North Hall. The film presented American research into milking methods and was followed by commentary and discussion for farmers, herdsmen and members of Young Farmers’ Clubs.
Younger villagers also used the building. A whist drive for Loxwood Youth Club in March 1956 attracted eighty-eight players and raised more than £11 for club funds. A photograph from about 1950 shows the original hall with its steep tiled roofs, shingled gable, brick entrance and tall chimney, surrounded by grass and hedges.
Expansion and redevelopment
The North Hall site increased in 1973 when about two and a half acres adjoining the hall were bought from Aylward & Smith & Co, the company associated with the Combination Stores. A new phase began in 2007 when Priscilla Phillips, working with the Parish Council and North Hall Management Committee, organised a village survey about the hall’s future. A £25,000 bequest from a local resident helped the committee develop plans, and architect Val Hinde of Petworth prepared a scheme that was presented to the village in 2009.
The first phase reached its £255,000 funding target in October 2010. Work added a new kitchen, toilets, a larger entrance with reception and refreshment space, an upstairs meeting room and additional car parking. The Parish Council contributed close to £120,000, while grants and community fundraising took the total raised for the project above £270,000 by 2011.
The community garden and 2011 open day
The Loxwood Community Garden Initiative cleared overgrown woodland and planted an orchard that included old Sussex apple varieties. Volunteers and children helped create a nature trail, bird boxes, log piles for insects and “stag beetle hotels”.
On 7 May 2011 North Hall held an open day to celebrate the redevelopment. David Wellington, a retired civil engineer who had helped lead the project, thanked the volunteers, fundraisers, Parish Council and project team. Seventy-four years after Mrs North opened the original hall on Coronation Day, Wellington ended the gathering by asking everyone to raise a glass to “Loxwood & North Hall”.
