Portrush Town Hall was built in 1870 on the seafront
of the north Antrim town - an exposed location but one where its
distinctive roofline and curved frontage could be seen to best
advantage. However after 130 years (see history)
the building was somewhat the worse for wear, and its main purpose
as a community theatre had been superceded to some extent by newer
and more sophisticated theatres in the area. The restoration Hearth
carried out in 2004-05 in association with Coleraine Borough Council
had two main purposes - firstly to restore the fabric of the building
to its former architectural splendour, and secondly to bring its
facilities as a theatre and meeting place up to modern standards.
At the end of 2001 Coleraine Borough Council asked
Hearth Revolving Fund to find a way of restoring the building
as it had been advised to demolish the town hall but been refused
listed building consent to do so. While the thought of running
a theatre as well as our houses was entrancing, we realised that
we had to work in association with the Council, and Hearth took
a ten year lease on the building, long enough to restore it and
oversee its first few years in use, but on completion of the building
works it was agreed that the hall would be leased back to the
Council.
Over the next couple of years the building was carefully
surveyed by Consarc Design Group acting as Hearth's architects,
and sketch plans and lease arrangements were agreed with the Council's
officers. Once the outline of the restoration had been established
and budgets prepared, Hearth made an application to the Heritage
Lottery Fund, which awarded a substantial grant towards the restoration
in April 2003. It was a further year before planning permission
was obtained for the restoration, and the contract was let in
the autumn of 2004.
Main contractors McCloskey & O'Kane of Limavady
started work with the exterior of the building - reslating the
roof and cutting out damaged bricks. The roof was surprisingly
sound considering the proximity to strong winds from the sea,
but one of the main arguments put forward for demolishing the
building was the condition of its brickwork and a claim that the
walls were porous and letting in water. There was no doubt about
the condition of some of the bricks:
but there was debate about why they were so bad. In
fact, they were by no means uniformly bad, and many of the upper
bricks were quite sound. The grey pointing sitting proud in the
above picture tells the story - where the bricks had been left
with their original lime pointing they were generally good, but
where they had been repointed in hard cement mortar they had spalled
with frost and possibly salt damage, often leaving the new mortar
sitting proud of the spalled face. At the planning appeal it had
been suggested that as many as 70% of the bricks would require
replacement; in fact, a salvaged brick was obtained locally that
matched the colour and texture well, and less than 30% required
replacement. Concern had been expressed that "because there
was no cavity in the wall" it would be porous, and indeed
in 1999 the walls of the main hall were dripping with moisture
and dry rot had taken hold.
However the walls consist of 9" brickwork facing
a rubble stone wall, which is quite solid. We were of the opinion
that the water was coming from blocked gutters, and had recommended
that they were cleared immediately while the main contract was
being prepared. By the time the builders were on site the walls
had dried out considerably. Another job that had been carried
out ahead of the contract was closing up the building and removing
pigeon guano that had built up during the time the building was
derelict.
The first bit of major construction was the demolition
of a flat-roofed 1960s extension at the rear of the building and
construction of a new extension in salvaged brick with a crowstepped
gable matching the rest of the town hall.
with 1960 extension
after restoration
The new extension provides toilet accommodation and
screens the lift that had to be put in to meet DDA standards.
Inserting the lift was not easy as it had to access the basement
at the front of the building and that meant digging into rock
on the landward side:
Once working on the inside of the building there was
the removal of the former cinema projection booth (probably added
in the 1930s or 1940s). Because the old film stock was highly
inflammable the projectionist was always in a fireproof chamber,
and in this case that meant a steel and concrete mezzanine running
across the windows at the curved end of the hall and expressed
on the outside of the building as heavy transomes in the windows.
It was removed, not without some difficulty, in order to open
up the original fenestration, and at once light streamed into
the room.
The projection booth
in place
Cutting out steelwork
Restoring the end of
the hall
At several stages in the development of the plans,
Hearth and its consultants had met with Council officers and representatives
of the main theatre groups likely to use the hall to ensure that
the specifications met with expectations. Around the middle of
2005 it was time for Hearth's Committee to view progress and meet
officers from the Council on site.
The last few months of the contract saw an immense
amount of electrical amd mechanical work carried out, and with
the arrival of the painters and theatrical specialists the hall
began to shape up. Basic spotlight gear was set up (it can be
extended by individual companies to suit particular purposes),
and the plasterwork round the proscenium of the stage was repaired
to make good damage after rot. A flexible sound system has been
set up, controlled from the newly extended gallery, and the entrance
hall is now level access. The old council chamber, originally
the Reading Room, is now a circular meeting room known as the
Girvan Room - named after Donald Girvan, a well-known local teacher
and historian who had been among the leading campaigners to save
the Town Hall before his untimely death in 2000.
There had been considerable debate about the paint
scheme for the hall: should it follow Victorian lines since it
was built in 1870, or a more art deco scheme, since it was extended
about 1930? Samples were taken from remaining paintwork, advice
was sought from Robert McKinstry who had restored the Belfast
Grand Opera House in the 1970s, and numerous test panels were
set up to guage the play of light on the chosen colours by day
and by night. The final decision was to pick up the colour of
varnished wood ceilings and ochre walls that had survived in an
untouched area above the former gallery, but rather than keep
the cream of the proscenium plasterwork it ws decided to paint
them in rich Victorian colours. The photographs below show the
completed hall, with most of the building team present on the
stage when the building was handed over in November 2005. .
