Village Squire, 1976-09, Page 12Some of them, of course were sure they
couldn't be hypnotized and more or less
dared the great maestro to do it He did of
course, and we delighted in it
But maybe the visitor should have
hypnotized the whole population to keep them
away from the trance created by television.
That's about the last thing I remember going
to see at, the old Hall. They'd held dances in
the place for years but the floors were weak
enough that when a rowdy square dance got
going, people in the rooms below feared the
ceiling might come down The dances were
moved down the street to the legion hall.
Stage events could be held nn the larger stage
of the high school auditorium with all the
fancy red and blue floodlights that seemed so
sophisticated compared to true old Hall.
So, after forty years of use, the hall was
more or less abandoned. The building itself is
still busy. The library that Andrew Carnegie
donated S7,500 in 1910 to fund, is on the main
floor and the village offices share the other
half of the floor. There are meeting rooms
that are kept busy and most people tend to
forget all -about the room upstairs.
It seemed strangely small when I visited it
recently. Where it had seemed grand in the
days when a yang imagination was at work,
it now seemed, after seeing many large and
grand theatres, cramped and simple. The
balcony at the back wasn't the spacious place
1 remembered but a tiny one. The stage, once
the scene • of moments of glory •seemed
crowded, even when empty. There were
flourescent lights hanging down from the
ceiling because the room was used as a
classroom when the village public school
burned down about 10 years ago. They've
never been removed. No and then a local club
may use the room for meetings, but mostly
it's ignored. But at least unlike so many halls
that were once centres of community
activities, it's in good shape and not
abandoned.
The separaters trom egg cases have been
painted and ingeniously used to decorate the
walls and improve acoustics at the same time.
Wingham Town Hall is a fine example of the ornate architecture of the turn of the century period.
10, VILLAGE SQUIRE/SEPTEMBER 1976
The quality of the workmanship of the 19th
century builders can be easily seen in things
like the railings.