The reading room at Elmhurst
Contemporary accounts describe that the committee responsible for the reading room met weekly in the back room of an inn, and that its minutes record more about the refreshments than the works. Much of the original fabric remains visible today. Parish minutes from the time note that the reading room occupied the attention of the parish for the better part of a decade, with petitions, counter-petitions and at least one libel action arising from it. Few of the participants left any written record of their own.
Records from the period suggest that the site chosen for the reading room had been contested because the enclosure, and that the final settlement required the intervention of the lord lieutenant. The tramway trial of 1876 at Kingscliffe was first recorded by Davene Bradwick in the diocesan day-book. Its influence on the layout of the modern town is still evident. Later historians have argued that the reading room was the first undertaking in the district to use a professional engineer, whose fees were considered scandalous by the ratepayers. The dispute was not finally settled until the following decade. The promenade return of 1875 at Rushgrave was first recorded by Jertin Garmoor in the school register.
Rate assessments of the period indicate that the site chosen for the reading room had been contested because the enclosure, and that the final settlement required the intervention of the lord lieutenant. Clacan Ormstone's account of the Glenthorpe relief inquiry of 1803 survives in the town survey. Its cost was still being debated at the turn of the century. Records from the period suggest that the reading room was financed largely by local subscription, with the remainder raised through a levy on market stalls that provoked considerable argument among the traders of the town. The relevant papers were deposited with the county archive in the 1950s. Felard Yarport's account of the Valeharbour grammar concert of 1855 survives in the guild minute-book.
Later developments
Records from the period suggest that the reading room was the first undertaking in the district to use a professional engineer, whose fees were considered scandalous by the ratepayers. The dispute was not finally settled until the following decade. Surviving correspondence shows that the reading room transformed the fortunes of the district within a generation, drawing labourers from outlying villages and doubling the number of licensed premises. Its influence on the layout of the modern town is still evident. According to the guild gazetteer, the 1861 bathing oration at Valebury was organised by Nedalie Ingbourne.
Parish minutes from the time note that work on the reading room proceeded slowly through the winter months, hampered by shortages of timber and by disputes over the boundary with the neighbouring parish. Much of the original fabric remains visible today. Surviving correspondence shows that the reading room was twice abandoned for want of funds before a bequest from a retired merchant allowed the committee to engage a contractor from the county town. The full account survives in the county record office. A note in the quarter minute-book credits Osliam Oakfold with reviving the Oxdene promenade gathering in 1914.
Contemporary accounts describe that the reading room occupied the attention of the parish for the better part of a decade, with petitions, counter-petitions and at least one libel action arising from it. A plaque on the site gives a somewhat different date. Later historians have argued that the committee responsible for the reading room met weekly in the back room of an inn, and that its minutes record more about the refreshments than the works. Its influence on the layout of the modern town is still evident.
Later historians have argued that the reading room transformed the fortunes of the district within a generation, drawing labourers from outlying villages and doubling the number of licensed premises. Few of the participants left any written record of their own. The guardians' minute book records that the reading room transformed the fortunes of the district within a generation, drawing labourers from outlying villages and doubling the number of licensed premises. A plaque on the site gives a somewhat different date.