The Drill Hall

The Drill Hall

This drill hall in Ware was built in 1899 to designs by Vivian Young of Westminster and constructed by J Simpson and Son of Paddington. It stands on Amwell End, on a site cleared of twenty-seven cottages that had occupied unsanitary slum conditions in the narrow yards and courts of that area.

The building is constructed of brick with a slate roof and comprises two distinct parts: a front section providing ancillary accommodation and the larger drill hall behind.

The frontage facing Amwell End presents two storeys arranged in three bays. A protruding central bay contains a wide entrance doorway at ground level and a canted oriel window above, flanked by two further windows. The left bay has two windows on the ground floor and three on the first floor, while the narrower right bay has one window at each level. All window and door openings have glazed brick surrounds and retain their original openings, though the windows and doors themselves have been replaced in modern times. Above the first floor a stringcourse is surmounted by a parapet that rises into two small gables over the central and left bays.

The ground floor interior of the front section contains a corridor with hardwood parquet flooring running between ancillary accommodation. This originally comprised a sergeant's mess, billiards room, drum store, orderly room and male toilets. Though the accommodation has been altered to provide modern facilities, the original ground floor plan remains largely intact. The second floor continues in its original use as a caretaker's flat.

The drill hall itself, accessed via the corridor, measures approximately 29 metres long, 16 metres wide and 8.5 metres high. It is formed by elliptical cross-braced iron girders supporting an underboarded mansard-like roof structure with slate covering. Roof lights run along the length of the upper slope, and dormer windows are positioned at both ends of each side of the roof at the junction between upper and lower slopes. This roof is of particularly elegant and unusual design: whilst most drill hall roofs of the period 1870–1910 were framed using semi-circular trussed ribs, this is an early example of a steel parabolic arch roof, a feature more commonly seen in the 20th century.

The brick walls to the sides are reinforced by slim buttresses running along the full length of the south elevation and along part of the north elevation. The north elevation includes a truncated chimney stack and, to its rear, a small brick annex with slate roof. The rear gable wall is of high brick with three large windows below which are four further window openings and a door to the south end.

Internally, the front wall features four brick pillasters rising to ceiling height and a first floor viewing gallery with a large central window flanked by two narrower windows. At low level, this wall including the pillasters and recessed areas is decorated with glazed brickwork. The side walls are partially covered in timber panelling with a glazed brick skirting below and exposed brickwork above. The lower half of the rear wall is separated from the main hall by a timber partition that originally housed a store, lecture room and armoury. The hall originally had hardwood parquet flooring but this has been replaced with modern sports flooring. A doorway in the rear of the north wall provides access to the small annexe, which originally contained female toilets, fuel store and boiler room. This annexe has been updated and partially converted to provide modern facilities whilst retaining the original floor plan.

The building was constructed at a cost of £5,250. The initiative to build a drill hall in Ware came from Dr A J Boyd, a local doctor and commanding officer of D Company of the first Hertfordshire Volunteer Battalion, the Bedfordshire Regiment. Boyd was concerned both to provide military facilities and to address the unsanitary conditions in Amwell End. Funding for the clearance of cottages and building of the hall was provided by Edmund Smith Hanbury, grandson and heir of Robert Hanbury, a wealthy brewer and evangelical churchman. Edmund Hanbury also financed new houses to the north of the town to rehouse the displaced inhabitants.

A formal opening was planned for October 1899 but was cancelled when the Second Boer War broke out in that month. However, soldiers were able to move in and begin training before some were shipped to South Africa. In 1913 Edmund Hanbury sold the hall to the Territorial Association of the County of Hertford.

During the First World War it served as headquarters for C Company of the first Battalion, Hertfordshire Regiment, with other regiments camping in or near Ware, and functioned as the enlistment centre for new volunteers. During the Second World War it became headquarters first to the Local Defence Volunteers and then to C Company of the first Battalion of the Hertfordshire Regiment of the Home Guard, serving also as a major venue for the town's war effort fundraising.

Throughout its existence the drill hall has remained in community use and continues today as a venue for concerts, plays, exhibitions, sports and other clubs.