Hi Graham.
Checked, cant locate this one.
There is a Drill Hall situated at Birdwell. Near Barnsley. South Yorkshire.

Recently part of the building has been taken over by a commercial company, but the part remaing is used by the Army Cadets.

It used to be the local recruiting drill hall for the Yorks & Lancaster Regiment.


Regards.

Brian.

Hi Brian
My name is Tony Fieldsed and I am the detachment commander for the Army Cadets at Birdwell. We no longer use the any part of the drill hall on Sheffield Road, it is now hair and beauty salon called Rain but has previoulsy been used as a hire shop, army surplus shop and the rear part of the building was used for many years as Birdwell Gun Club. We have a new purpose built building at the side of the old drill hall.

I would be more than happy to take you some up to date photo's if you would like that or try and get any info if that would help

Regards
Tony

The workload faced by a secretary and his staff could be massive. .... Futhermore, in addition to trying to induce the Volunteers to transfer to the TF and assess the state and number of inherited uniforms, kit and equipment, the secretary and his staff had to make and early survey of what buildings and premises, and their status, the association ahd on its books. Many of the former Volunteer buildings were very dilapidated, were in the wrong place for the new companies or batteries or were hired on such complicated terms and leases that numerous financial and legal difficulties had to be resolved before units could occupy them.

Wherever possible, the Army Council wanted associations to take over existing drill halls and, if necessary, repair and extend them. Buildings were also surveyed with a view to their potential earning capacity from sub-letting and whether they could easily be adapted as the headquarters of more than one unit. Those buildings which were deemed to be unsuitable or in the wrong place were handed over to the War Office for disposal; similiarly, those that were assessed as being in need of such extensive repair that it would be cheaper to relinquish them and build new were also rejected. Essex Association seems initially to have taken over a mere eight buildings and ranges while Surrey accepted thirty-five. The Surrey's survey concluded that the majority of the inherited buildings required extensive repairs but in place of the £5,906 its surveyor estimated would be needed to complete the work, the War Office offered only £1,500. Of the thity-five buildings, only twenty were judged to require no further legal moves to complete the transfer; unfortunately for the remainder, attempts to sort out the intricacies of tenure were frequently made more difficult by the status of the properties. Some buildings were privately owned, others were administered by trustees, many had been built by public subscription and their ownership was now open to dispute and others had become limited companies.* Associations' solicitors began a mammoth task but to ease the transfer of those buildings which were required to accommodate the limited number of units recruited across county boundaries, Kent came to formal agreements with the Sussex and County of London Associations. The County and City Associations opted to form a joint committee, which also consulted with the Middlesex Association, to determine without acrimony the allocation of old Volunteer accommodation across London.**

* When the Surrey Association wanted to buy Chertsey drill hall, for example, no decision could be reached because insufficient shareholders turned up at the meeting to form a quorum. Surrey Record Office 608/4/1, 25 August 1908; 608/2/1, 8 February 1909

** Kent Record Office MD/TA 3/1, 10 April 1908; Guildhall 12.606/1, 14 July 1908

Snared? WO?

Graeme knows the military stuff. I am merely the office junior.

I think Llandrindod is under threat from a major supermarket according to some communications I had with the local authority in the spring. I haven't yet followed up its fate.

Has Dave contacted poeple like the local history society (if there is one)? It might also be worth talking to Glamorgan Record Office. http://www.glamro.gov.uk/About%20us.html Look also at the links on the Online Archives tab. (Bear in mind that the area name is the address which it was a hundred years ago, ie Glamorgan.)

For pictures, most record offices have a collection of images which often include the drill hall.

English local authorities are supposed to maintain an Historic Environment Record (HER); I don't know about Welsh ones. If there is one, and the drill hall is considered of interest, it ought to be on that with some information about it. If there is an HER, and the drill hall is interesting and isn't on it, then ask them to consider including it. (We have had some success in ensuring at least one local authority's HER is correct.) Not all HERs are online or complete.

I am a bit pressed for time at the moment but I hope this will do to be going on with. I'll have a think. I'm pretty familiar with Port Talbot having had a relationship with someone there years ago!

Gwyn

England's Last Hope tells the story of the early years of the Territorial Force, Britain's part-time volunteer home defence army. Despite public ridicule and contempt, many thousands of largely working men gave their time and enthusiasm to create and sustain a force which they believed would be capable of hurling any putative invader from Britain’s shores. This is the first study of how the county associations raised, clothed, trained and administered the auxiliary during the crucial years of its development in the years preceding the Great War. A combination of previously underused national and local sources underpins an examination of the creation and character of the county associations and the problems and frustrations thrown at them by an often hostile and unsympathetic War Office. It looks at the frequently bizarre experiences of the mobilization period during the summer of 1914 and demonstrates how, despite Kitchener's controversial decision not to use the associations as the vehicle with which to expand the field army, the Territorials played an essential role in raising and equipping the New Army.

Gwyn's post somewhat understates things. ... the amount of effort to convert all this stuff into webpages has been enormous.
I think the results are well worth it. ...

I'm engaged in a project to record the premises of Britain's Territorial Army in the period 1908 - 1914.

Many drill halls have new owners and uses; many are unwanted and derelict, awaiting demolition and redevelopment. But either way, these important parts of our military, architectural and social history remain mostly unrecorded, and I an trying to do so before the bulldozers arrive!

A number of businesses and individuals have already provided information and images on the basis that I am not involved in any commercial enterprise, and that copyright for all photos remains with the owner of the original image. It is hoped that the information will become a book or website to make it available to a wider audience. All contributors will be acknowledged.

If you can help this project in any way, please email me, or forward this email to anyone you think may be able to assist.

Thanking you in anticipation.

Graeme Fisher

Staffordshire Territorial Force Association AD 1910 Drill hall at Tipton West Midlands.

Charlie

In the version of the database I have, there are pictures of parts of both these drill halls.

<snip>

Graeme may well have something else and I'll draw his attention to your question.

We appear to have an entrance and a part of frontage to 57a Farringdon road, plus an extract from The Times, 1888. I don't know the provenance of these pictures.

Gwyn

Many thanks for this, anything that you can supply would be appreciated. I guess I'm really after frontage/entrance shots if nothing else.



I had already searched this thread in the hope of finding images, any chance these are the ones supplied by Charles Fair back in 2003 on this thread (Posts #77 to #79) and now apparently no longer available?

Many thanks again.

Steve

Here's a couple of my pics of Farringdon road