Witney’s Langdale Hall just off Langdale Gate, located behind Robert Dyas on Market Square, has been used as a venue for a variety of activities during its ninety-five-year history.
A blue plaque on the front of the building tells us of its use in 1927 when it was built as a Drill Hall for the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (TA). The area in front of the building where Robert Dyas is located was originally grassed and soldiers would be seen drilling. The Drill Hall was part founded by Witney businessman and local mill owner, Captain Sidney Smith who had been in active service during World War I before being badly injured in 1916. Following the end of the war when Captain Smith returned to work as managing director at the Bridge Street Mill which his family part-owned he felt that the town had a need for military defence against foreign enemies. As a consequence, he set up the town’s Territorial Army unit and helped establish the Drill Hall. He also set up the Witney Rifle Club which used the range at Langdale Hall before it moved to new premises in Burford Road.
The Hall later became a social venue where dances and stage performances were held. However, by the early 1970s, the property had fallen into serious disrepair. By 2014, Witney Town Council had put the building up for sale for £750,000 in order to raise funds for repairing the town’s Corn Exchange. Their failure to sell the building, however, coupled with alternative funding for the Corn Exchange, led them to explore options for bringing the building back into community use.
Social enterprise, the ICE Centre, was operating from premises in Carterton but were urgently looking for new premises. Witney Town Council offered them a lease on the newly refurbished Langdale Hall’s community hub. The ICE Centre, a fully accessible centre offering inclusive care and education with a mixture of learning and leisure, provides a daily Monday to Friday service from 9am to 4pm, with other services operating on Saturdays when the ICE Club is open from 10am until 3pm. With no age limit, the ICE Centre caters for adults who have a range of learning disabilities, offering great facilities to make life easier including a full-size electric changing bed and hoist. The service users are also taken out and about to leisure facilities in the community including swimming and bowling in their own accessible minibus. A number of other activities are held for the service users with additional needs each week including a Tuesday evening youth group for 13 and up year olds and a monthly Friday evening disco. The people involved with the ICE Centre love taking part in local fund-raising activities, caring for the environment and Wheels for All Witney.
Langdale Hall is also the meeting point for D.I.T.T.O. (Doing It Together To Overcome). This social advocacy group offers disabled and vulnerable people of all ages and abilities, together with their careers, the opportunity to get together, socialise, and gain information, advice, and support on all aspects of disability. The group meets on the last Wednesday of every month from 10am to noon.
When it is not being used by the ICE Centre, Langdale Hall also provides a venue for a number of other social groups and clubs including karate and synchronized swimming dance practice. Charity fundraising events, physic fairs and various live music concerts of varying genres are held throughout the year. With a large sprung dance floor, a fully licensed bar and an industrial kitchen, the hall can be hired for birthday and anniversary parties and wedding receptions. It has the capacity to hold 400 people standing or 200 seated.
For further information about the ICE Centre visit Facebook @theicecentre.co.uk and for the Langdale Hall visit Facebook @LangdaleHallHire.
