Inside Brockwell Hall revealed! FOBP committee members Peter Bradley, Michael Taylor and Laura Morland visited the restoration site on 13 August. Read Peter Bradley’s full report below.
On Tuesday 13 August, there was an opportunity to visit the Brockwell Hall building site. FOBP Committee members taking part were Laura Morland in the morning, and Peter Bradley and Michael Taylor in the afternoon ~ all wearing hard hats!
Each tour lasted about an hour, and was led by Lucy Zaman, event services manager, Lambeth Council. Wedding organisers, who the council hopes will be a major source of revenue once the restoration is completed, joined the afternoon tour.
It is still very much a building site ~ hence the hard hats ~ but the progress achieved is impressive.
Upstairs, the major ‘Bristowe Room’ and two small satellite rooms will be available for hire, with small offices and kitchen for staff on the same corridor.
On the ground floor, the former kitchen/serving area and ‘Picture Room’ ~ whose Strachey pictures are in storage at the moment ~ will be repurposed as learning centre and quiet space. The major innovation on the ground floor is the creation of a 70-seat café. This will include the first new door in Brockwell Hall in 200+ years, on the side of the ladies toilet.
An exciting addition is the events space, which takes up half the yard between the Hall and the Stable Block. It is made of wood, with an elegant sloping, tiled roof. In the building works, a Regency ice house was discovered. This will be preserved in the space, with a glass viewing screen. When the events space is not used for private functions, it will be open to the community.
The basement will be available for community use. The new lift serves all three floors.
Finally, after initial doubts about whether the money could be found, a full restoration of the Stable Block is going ahead. It will be used for staff offices.
The £6 million restoration of Brockwell Hall is being funded jointly by Lambeth Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund. Community involvement in the project is being led by Ann Kingsbury and Derek Hoare of Brockwell Park Community Partners.
When will a cafe in the hall be open to the public again?