WERRIS CREEKA School of Arts was established in Werris Creek during the early 1900s but little is known of its early history. It was a brick building with a library, classroom, reading room and billiard room but for whatever reason, it was only ever half completed. A rather attractive Federation style façade had been planned for it but had never eventuated. The building was taken over by the NSW Government Railways in 1917 and, as outlined below, was developed as a Railway Institute. A hall was added in 1920 and a fibro-panelled front in 1924. The resultant building, although functional, has been described in a recent report on Werris Creek by architect John Carr and historian Dr John Ferry as "one of the most unusual, and dare one say ugliest, buildings in Werris Creek … a monument to the uneasy relationship the town had with the Railways Department". Its StoryThe Werris Creek School of Arts had struggled to be viable and had always had difficulty meeting its costs and providing its services to the community. In 1917, its trustees offered the building, and the land on which it stood, to the Commissioners for Railways on the understanding that they would complete the building and take it over as a Railway Institute. The Commissioners agreed to the proposal which was similar to one they had accepted at Junee in the south-west of the State. Instead of completing the planned façade, however, they opted, three years later, to erect a hall at the back of the block. The townspeople welcomed the hall as a much needed community facility, but they felt that the façade should have been completed as well. By 1924, the front of the building was still unfinished and the townspeople began to press the Railways Department to do something about it.
However, instead of providing the façade, which had been part of the original hand over agreement, the Department opted, in 1924, to extend the front of the building and to enclose it in fibro panels. The local people never regarded this as a satisfactory solution and even in 1939, over twenty years after the original handover, they were still lobbying for the completion of the front façade. Unfortunately, they were never successful and the building, with its rather unimaginative fibro panels, still graces the main street of the town. Its Later UseDespite the difficulties associated with completing the building, the newly named Railway Institute went on to serve as an important social and educational centre in the town. Classes, many with a distinctive railway flavour to them, were regularly held on such subjects as locomotive management, safe working conditions, and first aid. The hall at the back of the Institute was a popular venue for dances and balls, in particular, the annual Werris Creek Railway Ball which was frequently attended by senior Railway Department officials from Sydney, including the Commissioner. The meeting rooms also proved popular as venues for gatherings of such groups as the Red Cross and the local branch of the railway workers' union. As was common in other similar community institutions throughout the region, meeting rooms were occasionally leased on a semi-permanent basis to visiting professionals such as dentists and solicitors.
Its Significance to the CommunityThe Werris Creek Railway Institute, has served the community for just over a century as a centre for "learning, relaxing and celebrating". While little is known of its forerunner, the Werris Creek School of Arts, it has to be assumed that it provided the usual facilities of the time for reading, for listening to lectures, for holding meetings and for playing billiards and other games. The Institute is unique in the list of such institutions in the north-west area of the State in that it has always reflected a railway culture. The railway presence in Werris Creek has always influenced the activities of the Institute and as John Carr and John Ferry have put it, "there was a railway way of doing things". It continues to fill an ongoing social need in the town and is now an integral part of the federally funded Australian Railway Museum Project, based on Werris Creek. Reference: John Carr Architects and John Ferry, Werris Creek Railway Station, Conservation Plan. Vol 1., State Rail Heritage Unit, Sydney, 1998.
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