St Mary in the Castle – still looking for a stable future

A damp summer evening saw a packed meeting resolve to try and get this heritage site back into use. HOT’s Chris Connelley joined them to explore options and ideas.

Local residents came together on Wednesday 24 July for a well attended tour of, and meeting about, St Mary in the Castle (SMIC), the Grade 2* listed seafront facing heritage icon whose doors have now been closed for almost two years.

The meeting was facilitated by the team from Hastings Commons, the community- driven regeneration outfit responsible for the town’s Heritage Action Zone bid and the refurbishment and re-use of another long-empty and abandoned local site, the Observer Building.

Introducing the session at Stade Hall, Dr Jess Steele, the CEO of Hastings Commons, indicated that SMIC sits outside the area her organisation normally operates in, and is not another formal project for them, signposting the meeting as a chance to sample local opinion and get discussion moving again about the rehabilitation of a much-loved building that, whilst unoccupied, continues to deteriorate. “It doesn’t seem there is a fairy godmother, so it’s up to us – is there enough energy to take things forward?”

‘Asset of Community Value’ – for another 18 months…

Dr Steele introduced Glenys Jacques, who talked about the successful application for SMIC to be designated an asset of community value. Designation provides a degree of protection against speculative development through the requirement that local groups be given time to generate a bid in the event of a possible sale. The status was obtained in February 2023 and lasts three years, so is now approaching its half-way mark.

Jacques also flagged the building’s excellent acoustic quality and unique potential to deliver large-scale arts activity in the town, including full scale opera productions, which she said cannot now be easily accommodated in Hastings.

Ruth Gregory, another invited speaker, who curated an exhibition detailing the work of Rock Against Racism, the final show at SMIC before it closed its doors to the public in autumn 2022, remarked on the building’s suitability for visual arts activity and potential to draw in wider audiences than might normally be expected in more traditional arts venues. Originally intended to be exhibited in the De La Warr Pavilion, the Rock Against Racism show moved to SMIC, which she described as a “much better venue” and one that was “accessible to all sorts of people who don’t normally come to galleries or exhibitions.”

After this set of introductory comments, the meeting moved into a more open discussion mode facilitated by Dr Tola Dabiri, the new Heritage Strategy Manager for Hastings Commons. This explored the set of  ‘red lines’ that the meeting felt should inform any future use of the building, taking on board the need to protect the entirety of the site and the need for a broad-based vision to drive any sustainable development. The conversation was broad-ranging, and peppered with audience members’ personal experiences of supporting partnership and collaborative working to bring back similar sites into use.

The most dramatic intervention came when local architect Ken Davis, a leading light in the Hastings Urban Design Group, pitched a possible future for the building as one part of an ambitious tourism master plan connecting a number of hitherto discrete sites.

Davis stated, “Hastings stands at a turning point, change is in the air. We must now be bold and innovative.

“Hastings, we all know, is a seaside town, but as the M&S advertising agency might say, this is just not any seaside town, but rather a unique one which has not hitherto taken advantage of its unique status. 2066 rapidly approaches, so we not only have 1066 to celebrate but also a future to look forward to.

“Bureaucracies are notoriously poor at taking risks and so move forward, if at all, incrementally, and so it is here. We have, within a stone’s throw, three valuable and scarce resources: this building, the castle (ruins!), and the oft forgotten caves.

“I am suggesting… that the sum of these three could be greater than the parts alone”. He went on to namecheck comparable attractions, including Futuroscope near Poitiers in France, which he described as a “cinematic experience” and the Yorvic Centre in York.

The short verbal presentation drew applause and reinforced the power of a compelling vision to both engage people living in the town and attract public and private funders.

A number of the questions picked up on the role of the borough council, a topic that was addressed by Council leader, Julia Hilton, and Mayor Judy Rogers, who were present for the final half hour of the meeting. Cllr Hilton made clear that the council’s preferred solution was for “a long term tenant with deep pockets” able to lavish the much loved building with “love, care and expert attention”. With this in mind, she said the council would be “open to all sorts of partnerships” whilst recognising that taking on a project like SMIC “is a high skills challenge”. That said, she added that “if Hastings can’t come up with a solution, I don’t know who can”.

Cllr Rogers, who was on the building’s Board of Trustees from 2011–21, and regularly volunteered at live events until it closed down, identified the adverse effect of Covid on running a site like SMIC, stating that “we were that close to making it work as a venue but Covid destroyed everything”. She also picked up on the possibility of short term action to getting the building back into commission, identifying a number of basic minimum interventions she felt would get the site back on track. These included a new boiler, new lighting and sound equipment, along with a good clean and a programme to deliver.

With time running out, Jess Steele brought the meeting to a close by inviting members of the audience to sign up to join a working group tasked with exploring options for the future of the site. A small group made an immediate commitment, with opportunities still available for those who didn’t commit on the night, or did not attend the meeting, to join the group.

Anyone interested should email heritage@hastingscommons.com to find out more. 

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