HRH The Prince of Wales to re-open
Harrogates Royal Hall
Release Date: 9
January 2008
His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Patron of the Royal
Hall Restoration Trust, will officially reopen the Royal Hall in
Harrogate on Tuesday 22nd January 2008. Timings will be
announced next week.
This Frank Matcham masterpiece England's last remaining
kursaal has been restored to its stunning 1903 former glory
following a £10.7M restoration.
His Royal Highness will arrive at the Royal Hall to the
welcoming sound of the Harrogate Band and the Tom Roberts Jazz
Band. After being greeted by civic dignitaries, The Prince of
Wales will switch on a light display at the front of the Royal Hall
before meeting specially invited guests who have played a
significant role in the restoration project.
After a tour of the building to see for himself the scope and
standard of the restoration work, The Prince will be entertained in
the magnificently-decorated auditorium to a short concert by the
Tewit Youth Band; St Aidan's Chamber Choir and BBC TV's "2006
Choristers of the Year" 16 year old Emma Whiteley and
12 year old William Dutton.
At the conclusion of the concert, The Prince will unveil a
commemorative plaque.
Chairman of the Royal Hall Restoration Trust, Lilian Mina MBE,
is very pleased that space has been found in The Prince's diary for
such a prestigious start to an exciting new chapter in the Hall's
long history. She said: "We are delighted that The
Prince has taken such an interest in the restoration project.
He first visited the building in 2006 just as construction work
started and we hope he will be amazed by what has been achieved
since then."
The project to restore the historic building started off as an
£8 million core programme to resolve serious structural
problems and to install state-of-the-art services in the 104
year-old building. This core funding was jointly provided by
the Heritage Lottery Fund (£6 million) and Harrogate Borough
Council (£2 million). Work started in the summer of
2006 and was due to finish 13 months later. However, the
provision of additional funding by the Royal Hall Restoration Trust
extended the original contract until the end of January 2008 and
completely changed the scope of the project.
Over a period of little more than two years, the Royal Hall
Restoration Trust raised an additional £2.7M to complete all
of the works that were left out of the original full scheme on
funding grounds.
Council Leader, Mike Gardner said: "This project has been an
outstanding success and I pay full tribute to the council's project
team who have brought this complex programme in on time and on
budget, and to the Restoration Trust whose amazing fund-raising
success has resulted in a level of restoration that very few
thought possible when we started off down this road over six years
ago. This has truly been an effort by the whole community,
and Harrogate can feel very proud of what has been achieved.
"I am confident that the Royal Hall will be a huge asset for
the whole district and I'm sure that future generations will be
forever grateful for the legacy that we shall leave them. One
of the Heritage Lottery Fund's criteria for the grant award was
that the building should be open to as many people as possible and
that it should not just become a monument. We agree. As
well as the very many and varied entertainment, exhibition and
conference events, we plan to respond to this by opening up the
Hall as a visitor attraction with free of charge heritage
tours. We also plan to work with local schools and colleges
so that the Royal Hall can be used as an education resource."
Following its official reopening, the Royal Hall will spend
the next ten weeks being fitted out in preparation it for its
resurgence as one of the region's, if not the country's, leading
performing venues.
