Official re-opening for village club

North West Hampshire MP, Sir George Young, will officially open the refrubished Kingsclere Village Club on Saturday

SIX years of planning and fundraising will come to an end on Saturday (June 11) with the official re-opening of the Kingsclere Village Club.

North West Hampshire MP, Sir George Young, will unveil a commemoration board to officially open the refurbished 18th century grade II listed building on George Street, which has been modernised at a cost of more than £120,000.

The building, which was originally built around the 1760s, was turned into the Kingsclere Coffee and Reading Rooms in 1880 by local benefactor William Holding as a temperance alternative to the ten pubs in the village at the time.

After his death in 1921, the building was given to the people of Kingsclere in his memory to serve as a community facility, which it has done ever since with a variety of local organisations and groups now using the facility throughout the week.

However in recent years, the building has required considerable renovation work and funding to carry out the work, with support for the latest project coming from the Beechgreen Trust, Greenham Common Trust, the Community Aggregates Fund, the Office for Criminal Justice Reform, DEFRA and the Garfield Weston Foundation.

This support has seen the old flat-roofed former billiard room and wooden toilet block swept away and replaced with a new larger hall, increasing the seating capacity by about a third.

Work on the hall was started last September and completed earlier this year, although a new furniture store room is set to be completed in July, which will bring the male toilets back into use and complete the overall project.

The chairman of the managing trustees, Peter Woodman, said: “It is a splendid building and it is a real treat to do things with it.

“A building as old as this needs to be cherished and everyone who has come to see it has said the new hall is wonderful.”

Mr Woodman added that there had been a fantastic increase in demand for use of the hall and that it was now virtually in use between 9am and 9pm, Monday to Friday, and for birthdays and other events at weekends.

Mr Woodman said representatives from the many local organisations that use the hall have been invited to the official opening, alongside members of the parish council and local police.

The official opening by Sir George will take place at 12.15pm.