Hall History

Brief History

The Lloyd Hall commemorates the Lloyd family who, for nearly a hundred years, owned most of the land that now constitutes Outwood parish, and may be said to have been instrumental in giving Outwood its identity as a modern community.

Alfred Lloyd (1845-1919) came from a family with banking, corn-merchant and brewing connections.  In 1875 he bought the modest estate previously known as Brown’s Hill Farm, of some 250 acres, on which a country house called Harewoods had been built in the 1850s.  He added to this property steadily over the next 20 or 30 years, notably acquiring Burstow Park and its commons in 1889, until he had some 2000 acres.

His son Theodore (1872-1959) continued to acquire land, including in 1925 the triangle bounded by Millers Lane, Wasp Green Lane and Brickfield Road.  A parcel of this land he gave to the village of Outwood in 1938, and built a hall on it which he also gave to the village.  This replaced a parish room provided by his father forty years earlier.  Sir Jeremiah Colman of Gatton Park performed the opening ceremony in February 1938, when Mr Lloyd explained that the hall had been built in association with the National Council of Social Service, an institution founded in 1919 "for the purpose of the betterment of village life by the building of village halls".  Inside the hall there is a framed address of gratitude addressed to Theodore and his wife Beatrice.  As he died without an heir his lands and properties were given to the National Trust, which still owns and manages them.

The hall and the land on which it was built, having a frontage of approximately 152 feet to Brickfield Road, were conveyed to interim trustees on 24th February 1938 for the sum of ten shillings and were subsequently vested in the Board of Charity Commissioners for England and Wales on 22nd July 1938, and administration passed to a committee of local trustees.  The property continues to be held in trust to the present day by the Charity Commission.

The Trust Deed states that "the premises shall be held on trust for the purposes of physical and mental recreation and social, moral and intellectual development through the medium of reading and recreation rooms, library, lectures, classes, recreations and entertainments or otherwise as may be found expedient for the benefit of the inhabitants of the ecclesiastical  parish of Outwood and its immediate vicinity without distinction of sex or of political, religious or other opinions…".

So that the hall might be controlled by those who used it, the Trust Deed vested the management in representatives of village organisations and elected members of the village.  The original committee of trustees comprised one representative each from Burstow Parish Council, Outwood Women’s Institute, Outwood British Legion, Outwood Men’s Club, the Deacons of Outwood Baptist Chapel, Outwood Cricket Club and Outwood Parochial Church Council, plus two village representatives.

The hall was in full use until the outbreak of the Second World War when it became a first aid post for the duration.  As soon as it was handed back after the war it returned to its original use and has so continued to date.

The hall underwent a major refurbishment in 1997-8 with funds raised by the village under the guidance of Alan Chilvers MBE (hence the name of the room at the back of the hall) and a grant from national lottery funds. The hall was then reopened by Dame Judi Dench and Michael Williams on March 1st, 1998.

Michael Lane (March 2004)