NUNDLEThe School of Arts building at Nundle was erected early in 1892 and officially opened on 6 August of the same year by The Hon. T. M. Slattery, Minister for Mines and Agriculture. It was located in Jenkins Street, not far from Oakenville Creek, on land made available by the Government in 1891 from part of the town's recreation reserve. The building was of brick and was approximately 18 metres long and 7 metres wide and cost £235 to build. It contained a room at the front for use as a library. A hall was built next to the original building in 1930 and the two buildings were linked. When the hall was erected, the stage in the original building was removed. Kitchen facilities were added at the same time and the hall soon became known as the "supper room". Both buildings are still in existence and still in use. For many years, they were managed by a School of Arts Trust. In comparatively recent times, their management became the responsibility of a Trust set up by the Department of Land and Water Conservation. Its StoryInterest in the formation of a School of Arts in Nundle was relatively late in developing. Similar institutions had already been in operation for some twenty years or so at both Bowling Alley Point and Mount Pleasant. It was not until the late 1880s that moves were made in Nundle to open a subscription list for those interested in contributing to the construction of a School of Arts for the town. By 1890, contributions had reached £50 and, with the guarantee of a government "pound for pound" subsidy for funds raised, it was decided to go ahead with the project. The person largely responsible for raising the money was Mr F. Abrams, the secretary of the "Progress Committee" which was formed in April 1891. As a result of his efforts, a total of £101 had been raised by the time the building was opened. This meant that with the matching subsidy from the government, the Nundle School of Arts began with a relatively small debt of only £33. The official opening was something of a gala event in the town. The Ministerial party, under mounted police escort, travelled by wagonette from Tamworth on 5 August, halting at Schofield's Hotel at Bowling Alley Point along the way for refreshments. There, as elsewhere, others joined the procession and by the time the Minister reached Nundle, he was accompanied by a large contingent. That night, a banquet was held in the Royal Hotel on the corner of Oakenville and Jenkins streets and the School of Arts was officially opened the next day. There was a concert that night to round off the official celebrations.
The undated photograph at left of a large crowd in front of the Nundle School of Arts has survived. It is thought that it may have been taken during the opening ceremony but this cannot be verified. It appears in the 1953 publication Hills of Gold, by William A. Bayley and was described then as being "from an old print". It is known that from the outset, the Nundle School of Arts incorporated a lending library and that it "served the reading needs of Nundle residents for half a century". Presumably, it also had a reading area where residents could peruse various newspapers and magazines. Apart from this, little is known of the uses to which the original School of Arts building were put. It would certainly have served as a venue for public meetings, concerts, visiting entertainments, wedding receptions and other family gatherings and, in common with similar institutions throughout the region, would have been used for recruiting drives in times of war and as a venue for farewells and "welcome home" functions for servicemen and women. I. M. Simpson, in Pioneers of a Great Valley, provides some interesting accounts of early entertainments in Nundle, some of which make particular reference to the School of Arts building. One dealt with the visiting picture show man, Lawrence Penn: "Penn's Pictures came to the village in March 1913. It consisted of a very large projector, some large rolls of film which were wound onto a large reel and were fifty feet long and took two or three hours to put through the projector, while Mr Penn turned the handle on the side of it. They were shown in the old School of Arts Hall which is still in existence. His son, Mr Lyall Penn used to assist his father but was not very interested if there was a good book around. The Picture Show used to travel around the northern part of NSW in the small country towns for some years." There is no mention of a billiard room at the Nundle School of Arts. Perhaps this community need was adequately met by facilities elsewhere in town. It seems that apart from its reading library, the School of Arts served primarily as a community function centre. Initially, the facilities of the original building were adequate for this purpose but by the late 1920s, it had become clear that larger premises were needed and the "supper room" was added. Its Later UseThe front room of the School of Arts building, believed to have been the original library, was made available to the Nundle R.S.L. on a perpetual loan basis after the Second World War. It served for many years as the local headquarters of the RSL until reverting back to library use in the early 1990s. It is now used permanently by the Namoi Regional Library. In recent times, the hall and kitchen have been used to cater for events being held at the nearby Recreation Ground, including rodeos, school sports days and fetes. The facilities have also been used, on a regular basis, for film screenings organised by the Nundle Arts Council. Its Significance to the CommunityThe Nundle School of Arts provided an invaluable service to the community in its early days as a meeting venue and as a public lending library. This community function was extended and enhanced in 1930 with the addition of the present hall, which, by any measure, would rank as one of the largest and most presentable halls of its kind in any New South Wales town of comparable size. It is still in regular use and is still a valued community asset. It is interesting that the original building has reverted to being a venue for a lending library service, albeit one that is no longer under the management and control of a School of Arts committee.
|
To Alpha List |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||
