Reading Rooms Anniversary

This year marks the 150th Anniversary of the Reading Rooms in Billericay's High Street.  As part of our club members commitment to the life of our community, the President and Treasurer positions on the Reading Rooms Management Committee are filled by our club's own President Keith Wood and Treasurer Mike Sinclair.

A major event was held on the weekend of March 7th, with exhibitions by four local junior schools - Buttsbury, St. Johns, St. Peters, and Quilters, and the Billericay Society. The schoolchildren had visited Braitree Museum and our own Billericay Chater Museum to research the period when the Rooms were founded, and produced very interesting exhibits on the town as at that time.  A major feature of the event was a wall hanging of "bricks" filled in by over a 100 schoolchildren from the four schools with their comments on their visits to the museums and what they had discovered about these times.  This hanging is the principal feature of a commemorative Tea Towel which is available to members of the public.

Local Author Charles Phillips was also on hand with copies of his recent book - "The Story of Billericay. Members of the Committee and representatives from all the schoold were present in Victorian dress, in recognition of the foundation date for the building, and provided a picturesque and contemporaneous air to the event.

Proceedings opened with a reading of the Anniversary Scroll by our Town Crier, followed by a welcoming address by President Keith Woods who gave tribute to work of the Junior Schools and to everybody who had worked behind the scenes to make the event a success.  Local MP John Barron then opened the event with a tribute to the hard work which had gone into producing such a good exhibition, and a reminder of his annual sponsored walk which offered the opportunity to clubs to add to their funds. The final speaker was Kate Brown, from the Lottery, an invited guest in recognition of the funding provided by the Lottery which had enabled the Reading Rooms event to be so suitable staged.

The Rooms were then opened to members of the public to view the exhibitions and enjoy the ambience and content of both the rooms and the occasion.

The Billericay Gazette was on hand to record events and you can read their article by clicking on the image below:

or you can read the full article with all its photographs by clicking on this image:

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