Last call for your memories of Etal Village Hall ahead of its centenary in 2026
To mark Etal Village Hall’s centenary in January 2026, a comprehensive pictorial history is being compiled by three local residents.
They have issued a last call for people to get in touch with them if they have any stories and photographs from events at the hall that was opened on January 6, 1926.
In 2023 and 2024, Steve Taylor, Helen Moffit and Eric Musgrave took part in an initiative by Community Action Northumberland (CAN) to capture the heritage of village halls across the county, which has prompted them to publish a book solely on Etal Village Hall.
Over the past 99 years, the hall has been – among other things – a library and a reading room, a billiards room and a venue for dances, whist drives, concerts and parties. It has hosted folk music gigs, theatrical performances, lectures, flower and onion shows, several youth clubs (including one with a climbing wall), cinema performances, quizzes and an early internet cafe.
It has also, at different times, been the Etal village pub and the location for Presbyterian services.
Extended and modernised several times in recent years, today it is run by a committee of enthusiastic locals and remains a popular community venue, available for hire at modest cost.
Eric said: “We did very well with our research for the CAN project, but this is a last call to anyone who has attended an event at the hall or organised something at the venue to share their memories, so we can include the best of them in our centenary celebration book.
“We are especially keen to receive any photos that people would be happy to share as we are surprisingly short of ones from the 1940s to the 2000s.
“The building – originally called the Etal Peace Commemoration Hall – was constructed on the site of old cottages on the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Hugh Joicey, who lived at Etal Manor.
“He became the third Lord Joicey in 1940, following on from his father and his older brother. Hugh, who lived until 1966 and is fondly remembered by older locals, was the grandfather of the current Lord Joicey.”
He can be contacted via [email protected] and on 01890 820759.