Village Squire, 1976-11, Page 4The old Exeter Town Hall, minus its belfry, may not look like
much now but the Exeter Heritage Foundation feels it will
when their work is complete.
There are still people in Exeter who think the people of the
Exeter and District Heritage Foundation are crazy.
And. one can see why they might be sceptical. The
Heritage Foundation's biggest task right now is to restore the
old Exeter town hall to its original beauty. Less imaginative
people than the Foundation members, who know the building
only by its recent appearance, might wonder if there was any
original beauty in the first place.
The building at present is really the eyesore that critics
claim it is. The old, greying white paint has little charm. The
green trim is ugly. The old firehall door is boarded over with
plywood. Even the interesting bell tower is gone. Is what's
left really worth saving?
Yes. say Doug Gould chairman of the Foundation and the
other 70 members of his group. Not only is the building worth
saving as a reminder of our past, but the whole restoration is
economically feasible, they say. And they've done the
research to prove it. They have a report by Goderich
architectural adviser Nicholas Hill which told of the potential
of the building and they have won the support, both moral
and financial, of the Ontario Heritage Foundation.
Indeed, while passersby looking at the old hall might think
there is a long way to go before it shows this potential, those
involved will tell you that the project has come a long way
already in the nearly two years since the whole thing first
began.'
That was back in February 1975 when the Exeter Town
Counciwas again discussing tjie future of the old building
which many of the councillors had felt was beyond repair.
Mayor Bruce Shaw invited about seven interested persons to
form a committee to explore what should be done: was the
building worth saving or should it be torn down? What were
the possible future uses? And so on.
The committee members had varying opinions of the
project when they came to it and not all felt the building
2, Village Squire/November 1976
Determined group
in Exeter wants
to prove old
town hall
can be
beautiful again
should be saved. They had three months to prepare the
report. They looked at buildings elsewhere which had been
restored and examined the hall from top to bottom and
decided they had a valuable historical landmark on their
hands and it should stay. They turned in their report to the
council saying just that.
A few of the councillors weren't too happy with the report,
committee member Joyce Monteith recalls, but Mayor Shaw
was impressed with the amount of research they had put into
it.
The report didn't get much action and the whole matter lay
dormant for a while until one morning later that summer,
committee members picked up the morning paper and saw
that the belfry of the hall was being removed because the
council felt it was unsafe. There was no notice given of the
decision because it seems a large crane had been brought in
to take down an old water tower and it was decided that while
the crane was on the site, it might as well take down the belfry
too.
The demise of the belfry seemed to spur action. The
resulting publicity brought people forward to express their
views. Meanwhile, back before the belfry came down. Mayor
Shaw had applied for a Local Initiatives Program grant to be
used in fixing up the building. Then in November, the
committee was asked to make another recommendation along
with a cost estimate for necessary repairs. Word had been
received by this time that the L.I.P. grant had been approved,
but it was subject to a matching amount being put in by the
town council. Council decided it couldn't afford the 511,400
needed to match the grant so it turned down the grant.
Seeing the money so close, these interested in saving the
building decided to go after the grant themselves. Working
through their local Member of Parliament they managed to
have the grant transferred to them, no strings attached,
meaning they didn't have to match the grant. At the same