Summary
Village hall, 1913-1915, by Richardson & Gill for the Duchy of Cornwall. Extended* 1979-1988.
Reasons for Designation
Stoke Climsland Village Hall is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* for its design by Richardson & Gill, of which Sir Albert Richardson is a highly-regarded architect with many examples of his work included on the List;
* for its vernacular yet sophisticated design, reflecting Richardson’s Classical influences;
* as the hall remains virtually intact with good-quality woodwork and unpretentious Classical detailing.
Historic interest:
* for the association with the Duchy of Cornwall, particularly whilst Richardson & Gill were appointed as architects to the Duchy during a period of improvements to the Duchy estate between 1912 and 1939;
* as part of the Duchy of Cornwall’s planned programme of social improvements around Stoke Climsland following the decline of the mining industry.
Group value:
* with a number of listed buildings in the centre of Stoke Climsland village;
* in association with the nearby Home Farm and the cottages around the village green (unlisted but in the conservation area), built for the Duchy of Cornwall in 1913 and the late 1930s respectively.
History
Originating from Saxon landholdings owned first by the Abbey of Tavistock and then the Earls of Cornwall, the manor and settlement of Stoke Climsland grew up around the C13 church. On the establishment of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1337 by Edward III, the manor became part of the Duchy estate; the Duchy remains the principal landowner today. In 1775 Sir John Call built Whiteford house, which was later acquired by the Duchy and demolished in 1912. Material from the house was used in the construction of Duchy Home Farm in 1913. Shortly after the Home Farm was built, a new hall was presented to the parish by HRH the Prince of Wales. The hall was built to replace a derelict cottage by the church used as a reading room, giving the Duchy the opportunity to build a new non-denominational reading room on a new site. Designed by Richardson & Gill (who were also responsible for the Home Farm) the hall was commissioned in 1913 with Mr C B James being awarded the building contract for £612 in July 1914. The construction of the hall was part of a period of improvement in social and employment opportunities around Stoke Climsland led by Canon Martin Andrews, the Rector of the Parish, to alleviate poverty following extensive mine closures.
Sir Albert Richardson FRIBA (1880-1964) trained in the offices of Leonard Stokes and Frank T Verity, establishing his first architectural practice in 1906 with Charles Lovett Gill FRIBA (1880-1960). Richardson was a President of the Royal Academy, editor of the Architects' Journal and one of the founder members of the Georgian Group, alongside being an eminent writer on architecture. Influenced by neoclassicism but realising the challenges of Modernism, his work was a synthesis of modern and traditional approaches whilst his sympathies towards Classicism contributed towards the post-war restoration of many Georgian buildings. In 1912 he was appointed architect to the Duchy of Cornwall estate, although most of this work was done through the partnership of Richardson & Gill and not by Richardson alone. Alongside the buildings for the Duchy of Cornwall around Stoke Climsland, into the 1920s they also designed several farmhouses on Dartmoor and regenerated the Duchy estate on the Isles of Scilly. The partnership was dissolved in 1939 but Richardson went on to design many milestones of mid-C20 design, including Bracken House for the Financial Times in 1958.
Stoke Climsland Village Hall (also known as the parish rooms) was completed by June 1915 when an opening concert was held. It was used as both a reading room and club, and for meetings and other events. Plans, sections and elevations for the hall were included in the Architects' Journal in 1919. These show a large central hall, dividable by a curtain, a raised platform or stage, a retiring room, internal WC and a kitchen complete with boiler. The principal entrance was on the east elevation, with further external doorways on the north and south elevations from the retiring room and kitchen, and near to the stage. The roof was open to the rafters with simple iron tie bars and a ventilation system leading to a louvered cupola at the east end of the roof ridge. In April 1919 it was reported in the Western Morning News that the hall was to be used as a club for both sexes, and the Duchy were asked if a special recreational room could be built for men returning from the Great War as the rest of the hall was regularly occupied by other activities; this was not built. The hall also featured in Lawrence Weaver’s ‘Village Clubs and Halls’ in 1920, where it was noted that the curved wing walls at the front of the building emphasised the ‘carriage drive’ to the main entrance; the walls were originally rendered and painted but were stripped during the extension work in the 1980s. In 1979 plans were drawn up by the Duchy of Cornwall to extend the building on the north side, with a single-storey flat-roofed extension housing new toilets and store rooms. The WC on the north side of the building was removed, and the external door to the retiring room replaced with a window. The extension was opened on 28 June 1988 by Mrs D Colville, the High Sheriff of Cornwall. A suspended ceiling was inserted at some point in the C20. The raised stage was removed in the early 2000s to provide improved flexibility for performances.
Details
Village hall, 1913-1915, by Richardson & Gill for the Duchy of Cornwall. Extended* 1979-1988.
MATERIALS: roughcast rendered block work, with stone smooth-rendered dressings under a pitched Delabole-slate roof.
PLAN: on a confined site at a right angle to the main street, the building is single-storey, rectangular in plan, with slightly-projecting bays to the north and south at the west end which have hipped roofs. There is a single-storey flat-roofed extension*, one bay wide, along the north elevation.
At the east end of the roof ridge is a square cupola-tower with a timber-louvered upper section surmounted with a ball finial; it is slate-hung below. Between the central hall and rooms to the west is a rendered chimney stack. The principal elevation is to the east and is of three bays. It contains the main entrance which is placed centrally within a single-storey projecting bay with a pitched slate roof, the width of the elevation. The double entrance doors are flanked by paired Doric columns in antis, and in turn by square Doric pilasters which are repeated at the corners of the elevation. The entrance is flanked by timber sash windows. Over the entrance is a Diocletian window in a moulded surround within the gable end; the central section has been blocked in and is mounted with a clock. Within the apex of the gable is a stone cartouche bearing the Prince of Wales’ feathers. The south elevation comprises three window bays and a door. The western part of the building has a door and window bay to the south, and two window bays to the north (one formerly a door), and the west elevation has four window bays. On the western part of the building are cast-iron rainwater hoppers with the date 1915. The north-extension* elevation comprises six window bays. Except for the north elevation all windows are timber sashes within flat surrounds and swept cills; those to the south elevation have margin lights. All external doors are C20 replacements. Flanking the north and south sides of the east elevation are rubble-slate curved walls with moulded granite copings either side of the set-back entrance elevation. The wall to the north curves downwards towards the road whilst its inner part was raised when the north extension* was added in the 1980s. Both flanking walls are set with C20 timber doors.
The building is entered into a small lobby flanked by storerooms. Large, timber partly-glazed double-doors lead into the main hall which is four bays long with timber sash-windows to the south and blocked windows to the north which retain their window reveals. At the west end is a recessed bay flanked by reeded timber pilasters with patera to the capitals; this proscenium arch continues above the C20 inserted ceiling, where its timber entablature with mutules and meotopes survives. The walls are plastered and painted above a timber matchboard dado with a moulded dado rail and flat skirtings, and the floor is of herringbone parquet pine block. Internal doors are two-panelled moulded timber within moulded timber architraves. Flanking the former stage area are two doorways; the south leads to the kitchen which retains a timber ledged-door to the boiler space, and the north to a cupboard with an additional narrow door which originally led directly onto the stage and a further door to the former retiring room. This room is now accessed on the north side of the hall through an adapted former external doorway. This also provides access to the north extension* where all finishes, doors and windows are C20, although the roughcast render to the original external wall and the flat window surrounds have been retained.
* Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the extension* of 1979-1988 on the north side of Stoke Climsland Village Hall is not of special architectural or historic interest.
