THE JAMES HARGREAVES COMMUNITY HALL
MORCOMBELAKE

Who was James Hargreaves?
James Hargreaves was born in 1800 and trained for the ministry at Airdale College. In December 1830, he was appointed by the Congregational Church as a missionary to work in Morcombelake and the Marshwood Vale. He had no church and visited every house, cottage, and farm to spread his message, becoming friends with local gypsies and teaching their children to read.

In 1832, his first chapel was opened in Morcombelake. It was small and roughly built but was used as both chapel and school, soon becoming too small for its congregation. Thus the roof was raised and a gallery added in 1840.

Reverend Hargreaves was a remarkable man who travelled around the vale on horseback and had an aggregate congregation of about 1,000 in his chapels and 180 pupils in day schools. He was married, had several children, and lived in Morcombelake for some years. He died on November 10th, 1869 after 39 years’ service.
He, with members of his family, is buried in the old URC (United Reformed Church) graveyard behind the village hall named after him.

Recent History

In 1999 the URC, former owner of the hall, chapel and graveyard in Morcombelake, decided it had no further use for the property and offered it for purchase to the villagers of Morcombelake for £15,000. The offer was made at open public meetings chaired by the then URC minister Revd. Sheila Scarr. The village then set up a steering group and it sent out a questionnaire to every house in Morcombelake. Villagers were asked if they supported the raising of funds for purchase and refurbishment of the property with a view to its continuing as a village hall. Seventy percent of households responded and of those, sixty-five percent supported the idea of purchase and sixty percent said they were willing to support the necessary fund-raising.

Encouraged by this response, the steering group then raised funds for the commissioning of a feasibility study and armed with its report, put various proposals to the village in May 2000 at an open public meeting. It also paid for a structural survey of the property which concluded that the chapel could not be saved, such was its state of disrepair, but that the hall was essentially sound.

Based on these two reports, a preferred choice was put to villagers later that year at another public meeting. That meeting strongly endorsed the preferred choice, and a second village-wide questionnaire was sent out seeking confirmation of wider village support. One hundred and seventy questionnaires were returned and of those, one hundred and twenty were for the proposal and forty were opposed. We were thus armed with strong endorsement for the preferred option of demolishing the chapel and refurbishing the hall.

We submitted a Lottery Bid in April 2001 for money to buy the property, demolish the chapel, refurbish the hall, and build a car park in line with villagers’ clearly expressed wishes. In January 2002, we were turned down for an award, as were many other village halls in the area. However, we refused to give up and decided that we would simply have to raise the money ourselves knowing, of course, that this would take much longer than simply receiving a cheque from the Lotteries Board.
Thus we worked hard at fund-raising to raise the money for purchase of the property and several years ago we achieved our goal of raising the £15,000 for the purchase. Most of this money has come from the villagers of Morcombelake. However, we have also been successful in the award of two grants from Dorset Community Action (DCA) and have enjoyed the support of the Char Valley Parish Council.

For some years, our negotiations with URC had been very slow for various reasons but in 2004 we achieved the breakthrough.
On April 23rd 2004, we exchanged contracts with the United Reformed Church for the freehold of the property and completed on May 7th. So, after five years of hard fund-raising and negotiation, and with the help of DCA, the Char Valley Parish Council and recently 'Awards for All', the village of Morcombelake has its own village hall. The hall will remain as a village hall in perpetuity because of the restrictive covenants in the contract of sale. The covenants are binding not only on us, the present owners, but on all future owners of the property.

We give emphasis to providing functions for older residents with events such as ‘pop-ins’, outings, guided walks, art groups, WEA lectures, and others. The list of all activities is much longer than this and can be viewed on this web site. We have an innovative and enthusiastic committee and a fee-paying annual
'Grand Draw' membership of over one hundred people.

The planned sequence in refurbishment is:-

  1. Demolition of the chapel
  2. Post-demolition ancillary work (making good and making new door; spot under-pinning)
  3. 'Tanking' of internal walls
  4. New windows
  5. Re-wiring of electrics
  6. New heating
  7. New INSIDE toilet
  8. New kitchen
  9. New lighting system
  10. Paint inside and external walls
  11. Renovate hall roof inside and out
  12. Build extension at the rear of the hall as meeting/storage area.
  13. Move entrance to the front of the hall (West wall)
To date (1/6/2009), items 1 to 12 have been completed.