The Public hall is unrecognisable from the front doors following four weeks of destruction by an army of volunteers and just over a week of the builders but, before you read on – please note that there will be a temporary Box Office on the Market Street side of the Hall (shown by red arrow) from Monday 24 August where you will be able to purchase tickets for all events which are coming soon. Open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 3pm as per usual!

Beccles Public Hall Box Office Move CREDIT Stuart Sneddon
Beccles Public Hall Box Office Move – IMAGE CREDIT Stuart Sneddon

Why not be one of the first to attend a September event following the renovation of the foyer and gallery – a major event in the history of Beccles Public Hall!

By the end of Sunday 9 August volunteers had filled three skips with lath and plaster, brick, rubble and years of dust plus the bar and the old accessible toilet. Two lorry-loads of plasterboard were bagged up and were taken away by the builders. Three loads of timber, including floorboards (complete with rot and woodworm) and old panelling, have been sold to reclaim and the rest of the timber and fittings were put out in the car park, free to anyone who took it away and everything went, including the toilet roll from the accessible toilet! All the electrics have been stripped out, including the failing stage lighting dimmer boards that were installed in 1970. It is estimated this work has saved over £40,000 from the original quotes.

J H Vaudreys moved in at 6am on 10 August and by the end of the day had removed all the structure, joists and most of the walls ready to start putting in the five steel beams that would support the new balcony floor without a single Acroprop needed. By the end of week one (of the five in which they aim to complete the work) three steel beams were in place with the fourth ready to be installed. Each beam is made up of three pieces, each weighing over half a ton and joined with four steel plates and 46 high tensile bolts.

It was agreed with the builders that the wall between the Hall and foyer needed replacing so on the Sunday, volunteers stepped in again and removed it ready for Vaudreys to build a new wall that will incorporate automatic sliding doors.

By midday at the start of week two, the fourth steel was in place and half the front of the new balcony had the joists installed ready for the flooring to go down. The new fire exit is being created from the inside and the outside is just waiting for Suffolk Highways to move the lamppost that is in the way. They have promised this will happen on the 1 September so we apologise for the road closure for the half-day it will take. The base for the lift-shaft is laid so that when funding permits, it will be a simple job to install one.

Director, Terry Dentith said that he was very impressed with the work of the builders who have put in eleven and twelve hour days to get to the stage they are at. The building presented some problems but they rose to the challenge – particularly installing vertical walls when they need to match the outside wall that is six inches further out at the top than at the bottom.

None of this would be possible without the tremendous support of funders and the Hall’s own team that is contributing £26,000 to the project and the donation from Boysie’s Bucket List. The balance of the £180,000 needed has been met with grants from Viridor Credits, The Colin and Alan Thomas Memorial Fund, Beccles Townlands Charity, Geoffrey Watling Charity, Garfield Weston Foundation, The Foyle Foundation, The Paul Bassham Trust and Saffron Community Foundation. The balcony will have a new front commissioned from Barry at Martincraft and funded by the Beccles Music Festival.

John Cushing, Director said that the management group had been overwhelmed by the generosity of funders and their support for the Hall. He also thanked the volunteers, not just for the work taking down the old balcony but also the team that went in on a regular basis to clean up the layers of dust created so the Hall could continue to remain open till the builder moved in.

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