More to follow
Ronald John Saunders

More

More

And again

Again

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Sorry I sent 8 messages but I haven't got the knack of this photo sending thing.
Hope you publish this as a book/paper/journal article etc.Let us know.
Ronald J ohn Saunders

Great photos, Ronald.
Have you got an address for this drill hall?
Thanks
Graeme

Dyfed Army Cadet Force, c/o Major Malcolm E Evans, HQ Dyfed ACF, TA Centre, Murray St, Llanelli SA15 1BQ
is the contact name and address for the Drill Hall in Llanelli.
Ronald

Hope this is of interest from the Llanelly Mercury (note spelling) of March 9th 1911.
Ronald John Saunders

Ronald
That's fantastic. Photos and history all at once. The database thanks you!
By way of response I'll ask the Burry Port Mafia (Mother in law and her sister)
to terrorise people for something on ROF Pembrey.
Thanks again
Graeme

Hello Graeme! (exclamation mark)

I’m sure I’m not the only Forum member who automatically pops her camera in her bag when she goes out and about. Full stop.

It would enable us to help you in your project if you could post a few ideas about what to look for, comma, so that when we see promising-looking buildings, comma, we could investigate and take photos for you if appropriate. Full stop.

I, apostrophe, ’m sorry if this seems a naïve (diaeresis) question, comma, but you apostrophe ‘re quite right when you comment that a lot of people walk past familiar buildings without giving them a second thought, comma, so many treasures may be missed. Full stop. I know I, apostrophe, ‘m guilty of that, comma, too, comma, because I live in a small Georgian town which is preserved with GrII listeds and conservation orders and I am ashamed to say that I think I apostrophe ‘ve become quite blasé. (e acute) Full stop.

I have viewed through this thread and formed a few ideas, comma, but though I would like to help if I can, comma, I am a bit lost. Full stop.

À (a grave) propos your comment on my message in Credit Cards, comma, which I will loftily ignore, comma, please note that I have punctuated this message correctly (no comma) and have even noted the diacritics. Full stop.

Gwyn

Translation:

Willing innocent will take photos. Where to start? How to identify? Please. Ta.

Graeme

I was at East Sussex Record Office last week looking at the Sussex Territorial Association minutes, and although I was supposed to be looking for details of No. 2 Eastern General Hospital, the writing was so illegible, that the only words that kept jumping off the page were ‘Drill Hall.’ So I made a note of the following Drill Halls existing in Sussex in 1908/10. Perhaps some forum members may know if any of them still exist. I will check out any that I can that are local to me – some of these might be the same building under a different name.

Church Street, Brighton
Gloucester Road, Brighton
Coombe Road, Brighton
Marmion Road, Hove
Wish Road, Hove
The Goffs, Eastbourne
40 Junction Road, Eastbourne
Rock-a-Nore, Hastings
Hatherley Road, St. Leonards
Recreation Ground, St. Leonards
Tower Road West, St. Leonards
Queen’s Hall, Seaford
Watergate Lane, Lewes
Franklin Road, Portslade
Station Road, Bexill
34 Teville Road, Worthing
Eskdale, Burgess Hill

and at:
Heathfield, Pevensey, Hailsham, Ninfield, Newhaven, Battle, Hayward’s Heath, East Grinstead, Midhurst, Bognor, Hurstpierpoint.

Sue

And any areas where you have significant gaps in your database?

I was asking because I seriously wished to know, by the way!

Gwyn

Sue - thankyou.

That's just the sort of information that is so difficult to find. Brilliant.

There's some familiar addresses there, and some new ones.

Sussex has just got better!

Thanks again
Graeme

O Mighty Gwyn

allow me to introduce you to humility. Mine.

Sorry.

Point taken (no pun intended. Is there a pun there?)

Warning to other forum users. Never, ever take the mickey out of your colleagues, because apart from being particularly rude, you leave yourself wide open to crushing retribution by someone wittier and cleverer than yourself. And rightly so.

Anyway, back to my thread. (Can you hijack your own thread?)

Drill halls come in all shapes and sizes, materials and guises. It would be nice to say that they're all crenellated stone, like toy forts with the relevant regimental insignia in relief on the front, with flags and sentries and a sign saying 'drill hall'.
But for me, that's half the fascination. There's no standard pattern, no style or symbolism to guide us. Some are mighty Victorian works like Ardwick in Manchester, others quite anonymous. Purpose built, aquired or inherited, they're all different. And a century on, neglected, dimissed, demolished.

So if you know of one, and your camera's in the car..........PLEASE!

Big gaps at the moment are mid and north Wales, and Scotland.

But wherever, I'd rather suffer duplication than nothing at all.

Graeme

Please, please, there’s no need for self-abasement. It’s no secret among a few people that I am irritated with the occasional visitor to my website who has completely ignored the meanings, effects and passion and simply commented that I’ve made this or that punctuation mistake. Personally I think some people write a lot of empty words between perfectly placed capital letters and sentence-final punctuation. So I read your commas comment that I was being teased and I didn’t mind. Not one bit.

Anyway, to revert to the thread.

I know where my little town’s drill hall was. The best I can do at the moment is screen grabs of aerial footage from the 30s, but I’ll set off a quest on the eighty-year-olds’ social circuit and someone somewhere will have a photo, I’m quite certain. It works like Chinese whispers.

I think there is nearby still a part of a wall, a few red bricks just hanging together with old mortar, where the lads used to sit kicking, opposite the squat Cheshire-magpie pub with the thatched roof and windows dusty from the animals which bleated plaintively in the livestock market in the Square. Now adjacent to the site is an extensive glassy mirrored showroom, glossily tiled in marble with a couple of small trees to create an urban-chic landscape and in the centre of the floor is one car. Its price tag is probably more than a house.

The semiotics are pretty powerful. In under a hundred years, this little bit of land has gone from being the opening scene of some young men’s personal script encompassing suffering, selflessness and spirit, to the setting in which someone symbolises his success by signing for a RR Phantom.

Gwyn

........And in a couple of paragraphs Gwyn hits the nail on the head.

Whether or not your local drill hall remains, if you have an address, please let me know. All these little clues add up, and I'm grateful to everyone for whatever they offer.

Sometimes all that remains is rubble, but your local drill hall was the starting point of our Territorial forebears' journey to war. And for many, leaving the familiarity of their drill hall and marching to the railway station was the start of their final journey.

And for those who trace their footsteps now, the Terriers' pre-war weekly meeting place is a part of the jigsaw of remembering Grandad.

Thanks, Gwyn

Graeme

They won’t really be duplicates, because each photo will be unique: different lights, weather, seasons, passing human or canine interest. Each will tell its own individual story, be created by the building’s message to the individual photographer, be an individual moment in time.

That’s why I always sling my camera bag in the boot, cos you never know when you’re going to see something that you’ll never see again, even a shaft of light caressing a familiar sight in a way you’ve never seen before. It’s one of the good aspects of being medically retired but far too young for a zimmer frame: being able to go out and about with the time to capture these fragments of mood and circumstance in a way you rarely can if you plan it.

You never get the moments back if you don’t record them somehow.

How many drill halls have you already got on the database?

Gwyn

Hallo Graeme

This is a picture of the Drill Hall, Marmion Road, Hove. I have more, and also a series of photos of Little High Street, Worthing, and 34 Teville Road, Worthing. Little High Street might not be original - the building is old enough, but looks more like a converted pub. 34 Teville Road is interesting, because the railings and flag pole, and buildings are still there [just escaping death by shopping centre], but it wasn't possible to distinguish what was what without getting run over or arrested. If you let me have an off-list email address I'll send them all as an attachment.

Sue
[Life getting more interesting - or is it just sadder?]

Hi Graham

Here is an old photo of the drill Hall in Faringdon, Berks (now Oxon) it's the 3rd building from the left (gable end) and is in London Street. It was a Girls School prior to becoming the territorial drill hall and is now a private house. I can get you an up to date photo of it as well if you would like but probably not until the weekend?


Mark

Ooops
Please excuse my spelling of Graeme, Graeme

Mouth open, both feet firmly implanted

Mark

Because of the photo, I forgive you.

No problem, Mark, you just went for the obvious spelling rather than the 'I know it's different but I'm not sure how so I'll have a go' spelling, where the writer asks Carol Vorderman for 'a vowel, a consonant, another consonant' ad infinitum.

Regards

Greayhamme

Thanks, Mark, I'd love an up-to-date photo, but entirely at your leisure.

I'm particularly grateful for the location details, and the county change. I've tried to remain in the early 20th Century with my counties, no West Midlands or Greater London. But it's nice if someone either alerts or confirms the change of boundary.

Thanks

Graeme

a) That's why I'm trying to e-save them
The database has about 3600 listings, somewhere around 1000 drill halls? Many of these places had multiple occupancy, a couple of battalions of infantry, a company of engineers or medics, or a battery of guns. Oh, and some cavalry types, too. That's part of the fun for me, trying to work out which unit was where.
Confirmed premises are around 300 or 400 so far, with no small thanks to you lovely people.
c) Ta, Dragon

Graeme

Hi Sue,
bless your little starched apron strings!

Fab photo, great offer (yes, please, all you've got!) and what were you doing to invite the attentions of the Sussex Plod? I'll contact you off-list with an email address for pctures and gossip.

Life only becomes sad when it only interests you.

Thankyou

Graeme

Thanx for the information, Graeme. It's an awesome achievement in terms of information-gathering and collation so far.

Stoner - I love the picture of Faringdon which evokes memories for me. I guess it's changed again since I passed though it. Isn't the clarity excellent, even despite scanning and the intervention of the site software and my PC! The texture of the scene is striking.

Gwyn

I can see your urgency on this.

Living in a rural conservation town, I am usually alert to proposals for development. There is currently a moratorium in new building here, but as a friend’s son builds homes, I was scanning the supplementary planning guidance on restricting the supply of new housing (Macclesfield) and an entry for the construction of 12 new properties on the Drill Hall, a brownfield site, was listed there as approved.

Maybe it is too late for that one, I don’t know. It probably is. I’ll investigate. (Unless the Forum user who lives in Macc knows.)

Gwyn

That's just the problem, Gwyn.

I went to Wolverhampton's riding school as they were taking the roof off to redevelop.
So lucky there, sometimes too late elsewhere.
That's why all assistance is so gratefully received.

Graeme

Hello, Mr Big In Drill Halls

This be-pinaccled edifice is/was Macclesfield's Drill Hall. I spotted in on the Cheshire Image Base while I was in the library looking up something else. If posting this image breaches copyright, I will take it off.

If you knew Macc, you wouldn't be at all surprised that the artichecture is, um, idiosyncratic. It's its own place. Any town that has streets called Fitz Close, Fitz Crescent, Fitz Avenue, Fitz Road, Fitz Street, Fitz Drive, Fitz Allsizes...

Gwyn

Er... where's me picture? (Gwyn goes off on a quest).

Ten minutes later...

Hm. Oh well, if all else fails, read the instructions. As any fule kno.

Hi Greame (or Mr Big in drill halls )

Here are some up to date photos of the Drill Hall in Faringdon, sorry they aren't particularly good but it was persisting down with rain, that, and having one child in tow who's only concern was to get her Mothers day shopping sorted!
I believe, though I am not 100% sure yet, that it was used by the Berkshire Yeomanry. I will try and find out for sure.

Gwyn
Faringdon has changed a great deal even since I have lived here (19 years for my sins!) Many lovely old buildings which oozed character have now disappeared to be replaced by labyrinthine modern estates. Ahh, but that is the price of "progress" i guess?

Mark

And one from a similar angle to the "old" one

Mark

cars and cones and all!!!

(In the interregnum of the lost, forum-free weekend, Chris set up a 'don't panic, don't panic' interim thing to keep the faithful posted. And clearly stated that whatever was posted would be lost. For everyone's benefit, Stoner's postings above are slightly tidied up from the originals)

Thanks Mark, I appreciate your getting wet, and the failure of your camera later on. Trust your old grey mum offered dry towels.........

I like self-taught PC boffins.
Yea verily, spake St. Gates.
Thou shalt be smote by ye software, and thine enemies shall perform an illegal operation upon ye sinners.
Repent and reboot.


Fine pinnacles, Gwyn.
Glad you didn't crop the picture too much (hullo clouds, hullo sky......)

Fotherington Thomas.

Gywn,
Sorry I missed your earlier posting about the Drill Hall in Macc!
The photograph you have attached is the correct one(certainly from my TA days and from WW1)
The planning permission is for the modern one(Chester Road next to the Fire/Ambulance Station) which was built quite recently but was declared surplus to requiremnts by the present Government!
Whilst I am writing about Macclesfield there is an old Barracks in Crompton Road , Macclesfield but I'm not sure if it was used as a Drill Hall(Graeme,do you want me to do some research?)
The only other Drill Hall I know locally is the Stockport one in Greek Street but I am sure John Hartley has already mentioned it.
George

George, Macc planning dept emailed me this week that their current plans are about one in Bridge Street.

Pass.

How many Bridge Streets has Macc got, then? Where's the Bridge Street they mean? Is this pinnacled place in a Bridge Street?

They knocking down that place opposite Fieldbank Road then? Now there's a loss to the world of architecture.

Gwyn

Gwyn,
Didn't realise it was about Bridge Street (the one in your photograph)as it was re-developed years ago but with the original street front facade being retained. Bridge Street is half-way down Chestergate between Chester Road and Churchill Way.There is land to the rear,entrance from Catherine Street which I suppose could still be further redeveloped.In my TA days it was a vehicle park and garages.
Nothing in the local paper today other than the on-going arguments about what to do with the "new" Drill Hall!(houses,cinema,theatre,health, drop in-centre).Still as you know M.B.C. is always good for a laugh!
George

3000 views of this thread.

Is this a record?

Nah, no record.

Just a lot of people wondering why Grey Fish can't move on....

Seems my sad quest has touched a nerve with you lovely folks. But, hey, that' the point. It's YOUR heritage. Enjoy it and revel in nostalgia before it's flattened for a new Aldi or something.

3000 views, eh?

Nearly as many as entries in the database!

Pop in any time you're passing, thread hijackers welcome. (S'pose I'll have to hire meself a moderator.....)

Graeme

Hi George

The barracks in Crompton road were, according to Kelly's Directory 1914, home to 'the D Squadron, The Cheshire (Earl of Chester's) Yeomanry Territorial Force'.
Could you confirm this?

Graeme

Gwyn, if this is Northwich, then there are two listed.

The Cheshire Regiment had premises in Darwin Street, whilst the Cheshire Yeomanry lived in Navigation Road.

Typical Cheshire affluence, most towns made their territorials share.

If this isn't Northwich, then it's the Cheshire Steam Laundry and Chapel. I have a fine photo of a pub in Birmingham that may have been a drill hall, had it not stood half a mile up the road........ It happens.

Cheshire. Home of gnomes. Can we call them that? Vertically challenged horticulturalists? Dope may just bring some focus and reality to this mad, PC world.

Pointy hat and a five-skin of skunk. Yeah.........

G

What is the difference? Sorry if this is a stoopid question.

The Cheshire Steam Laundry is where?

Gwyn

Gwyn
Yeomanry = horses
Regiment = legs

Cavalry and infantry

Dashing and Disgusting

Flash and Baldrick.

Got it?

The Cheshire Steam Laundry is probably in Royston Vasey.

Was it Northwich?

Graeme

Graeme,
I note from the "Mother" Site that there was a Company of the Cheshire Yeomanry based in the Macclesfield (Crompton Road) Barracks in 1914.
The Barracks are still there but have been converted into Houses/Flats.
Will this suffice or do you want me to do some more digging?
George

George - any connection with Barracks Lane (up the road out of Macc that isn't the road to Rainow - can't recall name), up past Fence Ave?

Gwyn,
To be honest I'm not sure.
Crompton Road is off Park Lane,just about opposite The Further Education College.
Barracks Lane is off Buxton Road up the hill from Fence Avenue just past the Canal.
It must have been called Barracks Lane for some reason but it appears to pre-date WW1 as we seem to have found the two relevant WW1 Drill Halls.
I'll see if Graeme wants me to do any more digging before I wander over to the Library or consult the local Town Historian.
George(still a newcomer to Macc as he only moved to the Town 29 years ago!)
p.s. M.B.C. Macclesfield Borough Council=More Blooming Cockups or should that be the other way round?

New Boy George

Quite happy with Crompton Rd as is. Thanks.

The name Barracks Road is quite common, and many have their origins several hundred years ago. Drill halls would rarely have an impact on road names; there are a couple of Drill Hall Roads around, but mostly these buildings are insignificant in the great scheme.

Thanks

Graeme

Depends where local ends, I suppose. Manchester Uni still uses the one on Brunswick (?) Street as a sports centre: the McDougal Centre.

Unfortunately it isn't the sort of area where a girl feels comfortable standing alone clutching a posh-ish camera, except in VERY good cause.


Qu to D Hall Esq ... What great scheme? Was there one? is there one? (A bit Proustian for this time in a morning, I know, but one likes to get these things, these temps perdu, sorted.)


Gwyn

A girl need not worry; a chap with a cheap camera snapped the Man. Uni one in Burlington Street last year. V. Scary.
Also the nice one in Ardwick Green, and the one in Kings rd (Stretford?) where cheap chap nearly demised at the hands of a driver who failed to recognise the mad photographer in middle of t'road.....
Thanks for the non-offer, tho.

Great scheme? It transpires my manager's dad has a road named after him. His daughter works for the council, and they'd run out of inspiration for names....
Not all worthies, dignitaries or historical justifications, then. P'raps Drill Hall rd was preferable to Chipshop Street or Fellmonger's Way or That Nice Betty Nicklin's Nan's Neighbour's House With The Red Door Avenue.

Enough.

Hijacked my own damn thread, now.

Graeme

RE the corespondence on the Crompton Road Macclesfield Barracks,this was in fact originally the barracks of one of the battalions of Cheshire Militia and not a drill hall.
It nice to see that the original building can still be appreciated even though it has been converted into residental properties
Peter Brydon