Grant to kickstart urgent repair programme at His Place

The future is looking brighter for His Place community church following the award of a grant from Historic England to perform detailed planning for an extensive programme of repairs and to research its musical heritage. An open day and free concert is planned on 12 March which the church hopes will help drum up community support for its bid for funds to implement the repairs. Nick Terdre reports.

Located between Robertson Street and Cambridge Road, His Place is a Grade II listed building which is on the Heritage at Risk Register. Urgent repairs are needed to its crumbling masonry and fragile windows which have suffered badly over the years from wind and salt erosion, the church says.

The project comes under the Trinity Triangle High Streets Heritage Action Zone and was selected for support by the Heart of Hastings grants panel which is made up of local community organisations and businesses from the Trinity Triangle area. It has been awarded a grant of £19,916 by Historic England, whose £95m High Streets Heritage Action Zones programme is intended to breathe new life into moribund high streets across the UK, including seven in the South East.

“We’re thrilled to receive this grant from Heart of Hastings and Historic England,” said Nicola Roper, His Place administrator and trustee. “It means we can commission a proper investigation of our most urgent repairs and also begin to research our music heritage. We’re confident now of submitting a really strong bid to the Heritage Fund.”

The actual repair work will be the subject of a major funding bid at the end of March to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the preparation of which will also be covered by the current grant. Any monies granted by the NLHF will have to be match-funded, so application will also be required to other funding sources.

The chances of a successful bid will be greatly enhanced if it is clear it enjoys community backing, said Roper. “We have to prove to the Heritage Fund that people want to see this beautiful building saved for future generations,” she told HOT. “So we really need people to back our bid.”

Open day

To celebrate this first step towards restoring the building to full working order, a heritage open day will be held on Saturday 12 March when all are welcome to come along to explore the building and learn more about the project.

And in the first public performance after a long period of closure, there will be a free benefit concert arranged by Polo Piatti, the founder of Opus Theatre which shares the His Place auditorium. The lengthy line-up of well-known performers from Hastings and further afield includes Lianne Carroll, Oliver Poole, Blair, Daisy Noton, Earl Okin, Paul Lewis, Sharon Elizabeth, Yumino Seki, Leia Watts, Hastings Sinfonia Wind Quartet, Anna Rebecca Højlund, Francis Rayner, Jonathan Bruce and Thomas Dan Li – as well as pianist and composer Piatti himself.

Along with saving the building, the project seeks to preserve and celebrate the church’s music heritage. From the 1880s to the early 1970s, Robertson Street Congregational Church was at the forefront of community efforts to provide free and affordable music in Hastings. It ran choirs for all age groups, nurtured many vocal and instrumental soloists and hosted festivals, competitions and concerts.

In the 1950s its Young People’s Society put on hugely popular variety shows, which were the training ground for many performers in the Hastleons, the Philharmonic Choir and the Hastings Music Festival.

“We’d especially love to meet people who remember singing or performing with a church group or have old programmes, fliers, photographs or any other stuff from its history,” Roper said. “Please tell us your stories about this special place.”

Water ingress

The auditorium and other rooms on the Cambridge Road side have suffered extensive damage caused by two bouts of water ingress in two years. The second occurred just when repairs to the damage caused by the first had been completed, causing the collapse of ceilings at roof level and in one of the ground floor rooms on that side.

In periods of heavy rainfall, the drainage system, which also collects water from the neighbouring buildings, is unable to cope, a situation not helped by the location of the downpipes inside the building. Repairs of the damage occasioned by the second occurrence are due to be completed this month.

The upcoming bid is to raise funds to pay for urgent repair work to the Robertson Street side of the building and that entrance. Despite the state of the building, His Place continues to function, hosting the activities of various community groups of both a religious and non religious nature.

 

His Place Heritage Open Day Saturday 12 March, Robertson Street, Hastings TN34 1HL. Free concert in the auditorium at 4pm. Tea and refreshments will be served in the cafe from 2 to 4pm.

Please contact His Place by email with musical memories or for other information.

 

Also in: Heritage

« ‘The Dinosaur On Your Doorstep’ and half term fun at our local museum
Steve Peak’s America Ground »