The King's Hall is a theatre, concert hall and dance hall at Herne Bay, Kent, England. It was built as The Pavilion in 1903–1904, developed as the King Edward VII Memorial Hall in 1913 in memory of the late king, and was being called The King's Hall by 1912 while still at planning stage. Both building phases were designed by the local council surveyor F.W.J. Palmer, CE.Herne Bay Press 12 July 1913: "Royal visit". This is a special issue in which the article runs over many pages. The year 2013 was the centenary of the completion of the second and final phase of this building and its grand opening by Princess Beatrice on 10 July 1913.
Location, name and site The King's Hall is built into the Downs on East Cliff at the east end of Herne Bay, Kent. Before 1903, the Downs on East Cliff was a grassy slope down to the sea which during the Napoleonic Wars held a gun position and military camp.The Kings Hall: history thekingshall.com Retrieved 21 November 2013 The Downs was later held by Herne Bay Urban District Council as a place of recreation.Herne Bay Times 22 February 2001 p.8: "Look Back: from summer bandstand to a concert hall fit for a king" by Harold Gough The first phase, the Pavilion of 1904, was intended as an improvement of a previous bandstand on the same site.Herne Bay Times 24 March 2005: Past Times: "Ambitious plans transformed bandstand into grand cliffside theatre" This phase was called the East Cliff Pavilion at its opening, to differentiate it from the Grand Pier Pavilion (1910–1970).Herne Bay Press March 1904, p.6: "Local and district news" It later became the Pavilion or Bandstand. The second phase, or King Edward VII Memorial Hall of 1913, was being called The King's Hall in the local newspapers even before the ground was broken in 1912.
Pavilion or bandstand
Mr Thomas Dence the donor
The original building was a bandstand funded in 1903–1904 by Thomas Dence, Thomas Dence birth 1840 London 2/158 Thomas Dence death 1918 Bromley 2a/1249 a local developer who had been involved in the Frome Park Estate in Stroud Green and roads in the parish of St Mary, Islington, and owned property in Herne Bay.Aim25: Dence Thomas fl.1876 aim25.ac.uk Retrieved 11 November 2013whpara.org.uk:Notes on the growth of the WHPARA area Retrieved 11 November 2013 Dence had moved to Herne Bay for his health, bought the Downs, laid out roads at the top and built himself a house on Beacon Hill close by.Herne Bay Press 9 April 1904 p.2: "Opening of the East Cliff Pavilion, an important ceremony, full descriptive report" He conveyed the remaining sloping land back to the council, and in 1901 and 1903 suggested plans for a bandstand. He had in mind: "The erection of a pavilion on the east cliff for the use of residents and visitors. Its accommodation . . . should include a roofed in verandah shelter facing the sea, a large reading room intended to be supplied with newspapers, ladies' and gentlemens' lavatories, rooms for attendants, and drinking fountains . . . Band performances might at the discretion of the Council be permitted in the public hall, but no beach minstrels, or conjurors, or variety entertainments . . . The Urban Council should instruct their surveyor to prepare plans and specifications for this pavilion to cost £2,000, the plans to be so arranged as not to interfere with the view of residences then and thereafter to be erected on Beacon Hill." The council was expected at its own cost to provide, prepare and level the site, to provide the design and specification, to superintend the erection, and to provide control, upkeep and management. It also had to place a stone in front of the building saying: "East Cliff Pavilion presented to the town of Herne Bay by Thomas Dence 1902." Dence would pay up to £2,000 for erection, fixtures, and the builder's invoices. Due to a new estimate by the council surveyor and to site-preparation costs, Dence finally agreed to pay £3,745 in all, although the final cost as announced at the Pavilion's opening was £4,000. The completed building was handed over formally by Dence to the council on Easter Monday, 4 April 1904.
Dence was an entertaining speaker, as can be seen by the speech he gave on Opening Day. He said that "the original design of the building was a rough sketch by his daughter, with all the features he sought to include in the building. This was handed by him to Mr Palmer . . . who prepared the present design in all its manifold details." He said to great applause that the Pavilion was "built so strongly and solidly, and on such good foundations that it was likely to stand the fierce north-easterly breezes for generations yet to come," and that "while the East Cliff Pavilion remained, Mr Palmer's name would ever remain." He said that Mr Ingleton's building work had done him great credit and that he "must have put the best materials in it for the love of it." On the subject of the popularity and health-giving properties of the town, he suggested to much laughter that because 1,000 and 1,400 persons were listed in the town directory in 1902 and 1904 respectively, Herne Bay could have 200,000 inhabitants in the year 2000.Actual Herne Bay population was 35,188 in 2001 United Kingdom census He wanted to press for gardens and walks on the East Cliff, and for a nearby park.As of 2013, the cultivation of the East Cliff as gardens has not happened, but there is a park in the centre of Herne Bay, date unknown.
Mr F.W.J. Palmer the architect
Frederick William J. Palmer, CE, (1864–1947) was Surveyor to Herne Bay Urban District Council from at least 1891 to 1915. During these years he reconstructed all the main roads, rebuilt the council offices and Hampton Pier and constructed a new sea wall. He sewered the East Cliff and nine miles of private roads at the east end of Herne Bay.www.archive.org/ Proceedings of the Incorporated Association of Municipal and County Engineers, Vol XXII. 1895–96 Retrieved 17 November 2013www.archive.org/ Proceedings of the Incorporated Association of Municipal and County Engineers, Vol. XXXIV. 1907–1908 Retrieved 17 November 2013Easdown, Martin, Adventures in Oysterville: The failed oyster and seaside development of Hampton-on-Sea, Herne Bay (Michael's Bookshop, Ramsgate, 2008) (; Illustrated; no page numbers; copy at Herne Bay library) He planned and oversaw both phases of The King's Hall.
Mr A.S. Ingleton the builder Alfred Sneller Ingleton was a builder, contractor, surveyor, and a road and sewer contractor.1911Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald Kent, England 23 July 1904: "Herne Bay's Empty Houses" He was born in Sturry in 1857, married Sarah Milgate in the district of Blean in the summer of 1877, and died in Faversham in 1924 aged 66.Birth cert. Ingleton, Alfred Sneller, Blean, September 1857, 2a/517Marriage cert. Ingleton, Alfred Sneller, and Milgate, Sarah, Blean, June 1877, 2a/1165Death cert. Ingleton, Alfred S., 66, Faversham, March 1924, 2a/1544 In 1881 he was living in Sturry with his wife,United Kingdom Census 1881 in 1891 he was living in Herne,United Kingdom Census 1891 and in 1901 and 1911 he was living at Claremont, Canterbury Road, Herne Bay.1901 United Kingdom census and 1911 In 1905 he was in charge of repairs to Herne Bay Clock Tower when a clock weight fell on an employee and killed him.Bundock, Mike (2000). Herne Bay Clock Tower: A descriptive history. Herne Bay: Pierhead Publications. , page 21 In 1913 he was carrying on business as builder and contractor at 5 High Street, Herne Bay.The Edinburgh Gazette 26 August 1913, p.918 Retrieved 19 November 2013 By 1922 he had retired to 3 St Annes Road, Faversham.KentFallen.com: Sturry Retrieved 19 November 2013
Pavilion construction
In a speech on opening day, 4 April 1904, the architect F.W.J. Palmer detailed the building's construction. To prevent subsidence on this steep clay slope, so close to the sea: " [of spoil] had to be removed, by pitch pine piles ranging from to long were driven at stated distances down into the clay, on the north, east and west sides of the site,Note: the site slopes very steeply to the north and connected together by means of wrought iron tie rods passed through the piles, and interlaced one with the other, and connected together by means of by by iron rings, through which the tie rods were passed, and nuts placed in position, thus enabling the tie rods to be adjusted and tightened to a nicety. The whole of the site was then covered with a solid mass of Portland cement concrete thick, which when finished left the ironwork completely embedded in the same. Upon this foundation the superstructure was erected." From a speech by F.W.J. Palmer at the opening of The Pavilion, 4 April 1904 Under all walls there was a damp course of fibrous asphalt. The outer walls were of red and hard stock bricks with dressings of Victoria stone and facing bricks of Whiting's best reds The roof was made of rolled steel joists covered with sheets of expanded steel lathing, supplied and fixed by the New Expanded Metal Company, and the lathing for the ceilings was of sheets of this expanded metal lathing but of a smaller gauge. of coke breezed concrete was laid over these sheets, then of Val de Travers Mastic Asphalt was laid on top in two layers.
Completed pavilion 1904
This is a red brick building with patent Victoria stone dressings surrounded by a verandah of iron columns. In 1904 all the windows had Venetian blinds, and all the rooms were ventilated by Boyle's fresh air inlet ventilators. There were gas brackets in every room.
It had wide entrance doors: three doors with moulded panels, patent floor springs and brass fingerplates, and swing windows in the top panels. The windows were glazed with British polished plate glass. The window over the doorway had a heron and border painted on cathedral glass.The heron symbolises Herene Bay The lobby had moulded corner posts and panelling, and a moulded cornice. Beyond the lobby was a central hall by by high, with a dado of tinted, glazed bricks. The hall ceiling had a ventilated roof lantern which doubled as the base of the bandstand above. There was tongue and groove wood flooring laid on by joists, and a brown glazed brick skirting, a dado and salmon–coloured walls. Today as in 1904 the ceiling appears panelled, being broken up by girders supporting the roof, and supported by "ornamental iron columns with moulded bases and capitals;" the form of the ceiling lantern remains, but is unventilated. The walls still have the original pilasters with capitals to match the central columns. In 1904 the hall had a high platform stage with moulded panels and corners. Above that was a Victoria stone memorial tablet saying: "This pavilion was presented to the town of Herne Bay by Thomas Dence Esq., 1903. Architect F.W.J. Palmer C.E., surveyor to the Council. Builder A.S. Ingleton, Herne Bay".
On the right or west side of the main hall was a "well-lighted" ladies' retiring room by by high, with tongue and groove flooring and plainer walls than in the main hall. Through a lobby was the ladies' lavatory with six basins and a patent hot-water geyser, plus "every sanitary convenience". On the left or east side of the main hall was the gentlemen's reading room, somewhat larger than the ladies' at by by high. The men's lavatories had a urinal and the "usual offices" supplied by Adam & Co. of London, and a granite-paved floor. Both lavatories had white glazed brick walls to a height of with a "border of one course of tinted moulded bricks, and a skirting of four courses of tinted bricks, the top course of which is moulded." Water came from the Herne Bay Water Company's main in Beacon Hill to a large cistern, and this supplied the handbasins, the nine water closets and the inside and outside urinals. The most "up-to-date" drainage system was provided, but this was the only item not detailed in the newspapers. There were "spacious and comfortable male and female attendants' rooms, with every convenience".