Drill halls Options

[Graeme Fisher]

Firstly, thanks to Ken for the kind offer of a photo, and the info.

Big thanks to Charles for sharing the fab pictures of Falmouth's drill hall. I understand that the 4th and 5th Battalions amalgamated in 1921, hence the panel over the door.

Keep it coming, folks!

[Charles Fair]

Graeme - here is another one. 57a, Farringdon Rd, London. (about 100 yds N of Farringdon station). It was the headquarters of the 6th London Regt ('Cast-iron sixth'). This is the entrance, squeezed in between a couple of old shopfronts.

PS sorry its blurry, ancient digi camera playing up

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[Charles Fair]

close up of lintel over entrance. It seems like the building has been taken over by a design company.

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[Charles Fair]

... and the hall itself once you get through the entrance.

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[Graeme Fisher]

Thankyou Charles - you're becoming this topic's roving reporter!
It just shows how a piece of history is tucked away, thousands of people passing every day without even knowing it's there. A classic case of out of sight, out of mind.........
Great photos, thanks again!
Graeme

[Greenwoodman]

As promised over a year ago!!!!!


Top line reads "Headquarters"
Next is "............. Company
Then"5th???? Batt N S Reg"
This is in Shelton, in College Road, just south of Hanley.

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[Graeme Fisher]

Richard - worth the wait!
Thankyou.
The Drill Hall, College Rd, Hanley was the home of the headquarters, A,B,and E Companies 5th Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment. The Drill Hall at Hanley was also home to;
B Squadron Staffs Yeomanry
2 N Midland Bde RFA
2 N Midland Bde Ammunition Column
N Midland Divisional Telegraph Coy RE (listed as Victoria Rd / Victoria Park)
It was also referred to as The Barracks, Victoria Square, Shelton
Possibly 1897??

[Simon R]

Otley's drill hall (West Yorks.) has long gone the way of all flesh; it's footprint is now occupied by HSBC (not Argos). I'm not sure exactly who and how it served during WWI - whether it was the whole 1/4th West Riding Howitzers RFA (TF) (comprising the 1/10th Otley, 1/11th Ilkley and 1/4th Burley Amm. Col.) or just the Otley battery. I assume all three on mobilisation - the 1/11th moved to Otley by steam engine in 1914, but they must have had drilling facilities in Ilkley somewhere.

Prior to Haldane, this lot were engineers and would have been served by the hall. Otley had a massive influx of troops of all shapes and sizes 14-18 due to the proximity of Farnley Camp (Northern Command Gas and Grenade School). Recruits for the 1/10th/1/11th were billeted, in large quantities, at the Mechanics Institute which is where the museum set up by former signaller with the 1/11th Eric Cowling now resides.

Otley Museum can provide a lot of information regarding the site and you should contact them in writing at:

Otley Museum
Mechanics Institute (Civic Centre)
Cross Green
Otley
LS21

or, 01943 461052 Mon. Tues and Fri. mornings 10-12:30.

[Simon R]

Who is this project for by the way?
RCHME? Or purely a private enterprise?

[Graeme Fisher]

Who is this project for by the way?
RCHME? Or purely a private enterprise?

Simon - forgive the ignorance, but who's RCHME? Will they give me some petrol money?
Purely for my own pleasure, plus the fact these places are mostly unrecorded and forgotten.
All pre-1914 territorials will have spent an evening a week in one; it was the starting point for their embarkation, and for the architecturally-minded, there's some nice ones out there....
It just came about because I wanted some info on a couple of local drill halls and couldn't find anyone to help. So...... It's mine, I'm happy to share what little info i have with all and sundry, and really do appreciate anything that people offer. No profit, no 'official' status, just Norman No-mates dragging his wife and kids round the country taking pictures of derelict buildings!

Thanks for the stuff on Otley, anything and everything helps, and when this project breaks out into the public domain, you'll all get a mention.

Keep it coming, please!

[Charles Fair]

Purely for my own pleasure, plus the fact these places are mostly unrecorded and forgotten.
All pre-1914 territorials will have spent an evening a week in one; it was the starting point for their embarkation, and for the architecturally-minded, there's some nice ones out there....
It just came about because I wanted some info on a couple of local drill halls and couldn't find anyone to help. So...... It's mine, I'm happy to share what little info i have with all and sundry, and really do appreciate anything that people offer.

Graeme - as I have said before, its an extremely important and worthwhile project.

It would be worth checking the minutes of the county TF associations which are often to be found in CROs. The minutes of the County of London TF Assoc are in the London Met Archives in Faringdon and contain a lot of details about drill halls. I had a look through this over the summer and noticed a lot of comment about ownership of the halls (i.e. unit owned e.g. HAC, TF Assoc, Ministry etc.) expenditure on repairs and maintenance, capital expenditure on new premises (e.g. when the 10th London Regt relocated from Paddington to Hackney in c 1910) etc.

I gather the BBC will be running a second series of its Restoration programme next year. Do you think we could get 30 drills halls into the programme? Some are certainly worthy of it.

Charles

[Graeme Fisher]

Charles, you're a marvel.
All you need now is to get me a lottery grant and EU funding to quit work and spend the next thirty or forty years in record offices transcribing stuff for my sad hobby!
Seriously, I wasn't aware that all that stuff existed! Trip to London being booked as I write.....

It would be nice to get one drill hall on Restoration, if only to wake people up to these forgotten places. Any friends at the BBC? And which one shall we save?

Vote for your favourite drill hall. It might just uncover one I don't know about!

[Charles Fair]

Graeme,

The County of London TF Assoc met quarterly or so, with the exception of most of the first three years of the war. Its surviving records are in the London Metropolitan Archives under the follwing refs:

A/TA/1 County of London TF Association - minutes Jan 1908 to March 1914
A/TA/2 ditto - minutes July 1914, May 1917 - Oct 1919
A/TA/3 ditto - minutes Oct 1920 - Oct 1926
A/TA/4 ditto - minutes Jan 1927 - Oct 1931
A/TA/5 ditto - minutes June 1932 - Oct 1935
A/TA/6 ditto - minutes June 1936 - Nov 1936

These documents are minutes, and tend to be fairly short printed summaries of the meetings which included reports of each subcommittee (recruiting, finance etc)

More useful are later on in the same document series where it goes back to 1908 and you start getting full verbatim transcripts of each meeting. These contain a lot of interesting detail and quotes that were edited out of the minutes. I only looked at the following which contained some gems about recruiting in London in the pre-War period:

A/TA/8 ditto - transcripts - Jan 1908 - July 1914
etc

It will take you a fair bit of time to comb through them, but you should get plenty of snippets. Probably worth trying a Record Office nearer to home to find something local to you that will give you an idea of what is to be found.

Charles

[John W]

SOme of the record books for the West Yorkshire association still survive and are at the west yorks archieves in Leeds.

As I remember all the minute books between about 1908 and 1914 are there although some of the handwriting is "interesting"

John

[Graeme Fisher]

Thankyou Charles and John.
It never ceases to amaze me what lies hidden within local archives.
Shame it's not all digitised and on line.
Looks like some more 'lost' weekends coming up.....
Thanks again
Graeme

[roger]

Graeme,
Thought you might be interested in this,
(Helensburgh's Drill Hall) Sunday, September 14, 2003 @ 9:45 AM EST
It had to happen - the old drill hall in Helensburgh is getting a new lease of life. Or at least, that's the hope of Argyll and Bute Council after they were refused permission to demolish it. A 10 year lease for the building is on offer; however, the person taking on the building will have to agree to refurbish the building. It's a listed building and will have to meet strict criteria when the refurbishment is planned.

For information, contact Argyll and Bute Council - Estates Office on 01436 658957. They are hoping to have it leased by 25 September (??)

Cheers
Margaret
MacGillivray's Scottish Gifts and Coffee Shop, Helensburgh


I remember seeing a few articles in the Helensburgh Advertiser on the subject. In someone elses paper So I did a Google search and found this, anyone fancy their own drill hall?

[Ken Lees]

As promised ages ago - a few pics of the Drill Hall in Ormskirk, Lancashire.

The marble plaque to the right of the main entrance says "The site of this building was given to the Ormskirk Companies of the 3rd V.B. (The King's) L'pool Regt. by James Eastham Esq., Edinfield, Ormskirk.

The marble plaque on the left of the doorway reads "This stone was laid on the 8th day of April, 1899 by the Right Honourable, The Earl of Derby, K.C.G.C.B."

After the 1908 reforms and the creation of the Territorial Force, there was obviously some additional reorganisation within the regiment because the Ormskirk Companies became part of the 9th King's and the 9th King's were primarily a renumbering of the 6th VB.

I can send higher quality pictures of the Drill Hall, including close-ups of the plaques, if required.

Ken

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[Chris_B]

Graeme,

Two more "Drill halls" which may or may not already be on your list:

1. Wimbledon Drill Hall - St.George's Road Wimbledon. My Grandfather enlisted in November 1914 at this Drill Hall, joining the South Lancashire Regiment (Prince of Walse's Volunteers).

The earliest mention I can find of the Drill Hall is 1880. It was used as, amongst other things, as a boxing venue in the inter-war years. I've found no photo yet, and think the original building is sadly long gone.

2. Kingston Drill Hall - Orchard Road (?), Kingston Surrey. Kingston was a recruiting centre for the East Surrey Regiment. My Grandfather's cousin enlisted at Kingston, possibly before 1914. Again I have no photo and have not been able to do any research on this yet.

Perhaps a South London based PAL could tell you more.

If I find out more I'll let you know.

Good luck with your project.

Chris.

[Graeme Fisher]

Chris, Ken and Roger - you lot are awesome! Thanks!

Shame on Argyll and Bute Council for trying to get the drill hall demolished.

Ken - I'd be well chuffed with some more pictures - is that a coat-of-arms at the apex of the frontage?

As always, anything and everything brings something more to the project.
Thank you.
Graeme

[Ken Lees]

Graeme,

I'll take some more pics of the Ormskirk Drill Hall when the weather is a little better. The building is only up the road so it won't take long. That is a coat of arms at the top and I'll ensure I get a photo of it. The pictures of the marble plaques didn't come out too well, so I'll re-take them.

Regards,

Ken

[Graeme Fisher]

Thanks, Ken

At your convenience, of course

Cheers
Graeme

[Deleted_Invicta_*]

Graeme

Attached photo from Lewisham Library of Holly Hedge House, Blackheath - home of 20th London.

Building was hit in WWII and all the regimental records were lost in the resulting fire.

You can see the WWI memorial in the top of the picture.

Regards

Invicta

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[Deleted_Invicta_*]

Sorry picture a bit large - first time I have added one

Invicta

[Graeme Fisher]

Invicta - thanks.

[ronaldaroo]

Hope these photos of Llanelli Drill Hall Carmarthenshire are of use.

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