Baldock Community Centre

Now the holiday season is nearly over, we are back to having guest speakers again at Rotary and this week we were delighted to welcome two ladies who do much for our town and our local community – Alison Gentle and Maureen Maddren.

Their presentation was about the History of The Town Hall which is now the Baldock Arts and Heritage Centre; an excellent re-purposing of this iconic building.

The building was erected in the late 1890’s on land donated by Thomas Pryor of Weston “for the community” and it served as town hall and council offices for many years.  By 2000, NHDC no longer needed it and, after a campaign to save it, the keys were finally acquired by the group who now run it in its new role. Alison gave us a history of the campaign to keep it as an Arts and Heritage Centre and the work done by the volunteers, originally chaired by Chris Gomm and later Alison. She had memories of the upper floor having been used as a badminton court; it is now the regularly used Thomas Pryor Theatre. An early event was a Jazz Night where chairs had to be borrowed from the Community Centre and returned afterwards by the event attendees in a wonderful display of community spirit!

Downstairs there is now an elegant Gallery Room where local artists can display their work in exhibitions (no hanging fee but a commission is taken) and this is so successful, that it is fully booked up until 2027 – worth visiting to see the artwork on display.

And you can enjoy a coffee or tea there while you visit!

Recently the Gallery Room has been connected via a short stairway directly to the Baldock Museum which is also well worth visiting and where an exhibition about Baldock in World War 2 is currently on display.

Alison showed a series of “before and after photographs” so we could appreciate all the good work that has been done.

Maureen, who is a volunteer coordinator, then gave us a useful update of on-going and planned programmes. The theatre has been re-vamped and regularly puts on a cinema programme and the facility is regularly used by arts and drama groups, History in the Afternoon, National Theatre Live and Film Club (for which annual membership is required). To see more please visit https://www.bahc.co.uk

The centre is open from 11.00 am to 3.00 pm on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Our thanks to Alison and Maureen for such an informative and interesting talk.