History of the Church Hall

St Gabriel’s parish hall will shortly be celebrating its centenary in 2027. During its hundred years, it has provided essential community meeting and event space to the local people of Aldersbrook and users of the surrounding Wanstead Park and Wanstead Flats. At present, the hall is filled seven days a week with Wanstead Park Pre-school, Scouting and Guiding uniform groups and a host of activities from children’s parties to games nights for adolescents with autism. The Friends of St Gabriel’s are working hard to raise funds and make improvements to secure the future of the hall - find out more about our work and how to donate here [insert link https://www.stgabrielsaldersbrook.org.uk/friends]. Local historian Jane Skelding has been looking in more detail into the history of this much-loved local landmark.

Fundraising for St. Gabriel’s Parish Hall started in 1925 when a newspaper article noted that the hall was needed - “the present church room, useful as it has proved in the past, being inadequate for the growing needs of the church and its parochial institutions” (West Ham and South Essex Mail - Friday 04 December 1925). The new hall would create a permanent home for the local groups and Sunday school that used the old temporary church room which was a ‘tin hall’, which had been erected in 1903 along with the original tin church.

The required £4000 building cost was met by fundraising in the local community, and in 1927 work commenced. The photo below from the parish archives shows the moment on 28th May 1927, when two foundation stones were laid in great ceremony and witnessed by a large crowd, testimony to its importance. One stone was inscribed “on behalf of the Sunday school” and laid by the Venerable Archdeacon P M Bayne MA, and the other by Viscountess Byng of Vimy.

The hall was finished by October 1927 when a flyer was sent with an attractive line drawing of the new hall and a floor plan (see below). The leaflet also detailed the facilities now available to hire:

The Hall, which is 72 ft. long and 40 ft. wide, has a polished maple floor for dancing and will accommodate 200 to 250 persons for that purpose, or will seat 100 for a concert or meeting. On either side of the spacious entrance hall there will be cloak rooms for both ladies and gentlemen, and above there is a large balcony which, when required, can be shut off from the main hall by a folding partition and used as a committee room. At the far end of the hall is a large stage with dressing rooms on either side.

The original hire price was up to 3 guineas for an “ordinary evening” of “Dances and Whist Drives.” With the committee rooms available to clubs and other organisations. The proximity to Wanstead Flats and Epping Forest was a selling point as groups were encouraged to hire the hall for refreshments after “tennis or other games.”

Then, as now, the hall was in constant use by the church and community, often for fundraising activities. This flyer from 1948 advertising a sale to raise funds for the “Bishop’s Fund for Post-War Needs”. Activities included handicrafts, a book stall and of course, refreshments of tea and cake.

Regular users of the hall have always included Scout and Girl Guides groups like this one pictured below, outside the hall in 1958.

One hundred years on, the hall is in desperate need of internal upgrades, and we are raising funds to make sure that it is fit for the community now and for another hundred years. Our theme for the hall’s regeneration is sustainability, so in everything we do, we are reusing, upcycling, and installing energy-conserving provisions.

If you are able to donate or want to offer help with skills or ideas for fundraisers, please get in touch with the Friends of St Gabriel’s [insert link https://www.stgabrielsaldersbrook.org.uk/friends] or you can make a direct donation here [insert link https://st-gabriels-church.sumupstore.com/product/friends-of-st-gabriel-s].