Livesey Memorial Hall

Livesey Memorial Hall is a recreation hall built in 1911 by S.Y. Shoubridge, Engineer to the South Suburban Gas Company, for the company’s employees. It is constructed of London stock brick, made by the Gas Company, on concrete foundations, with Burmantoft terracotta dressings. The roof is red-tiled and hipped, with gablets to the ends containing occuli and finials. The building retains its original small-paned, clear-glazed windows.

The hall has a single-storey, ‘E’ shaped plan aligned north/south, with a central projecting porch to the west. This western projection has been partly obscured by a later extension built as an ‘all-gas’ kitchen, in place by 1936. The exterior has ten bays, with the two central bays defined by a pediment containing an oculus above the entrance porch. The square, double-arched porch is accessed by a short flight of steps, and contains hardwood entrance doors with six panels that fold in two leaves, surmounted by a semi-circular fanlight set within a red-brick round-headed surround. A terracotta balustrade runs between the porch’s corner piers, which are topped with pierced, urn-like finials in Jacobean style. A faience panel between the arches and balustrade depicts a beige banner framed by stems of acanthus and pomegranate on a green ground, with the words 'LIVESEY MEMORIAL HALL' in raised oxblood lettering. The pedimented end bays project slightly, each containing a Venetian window. Doric pilasters divide the other bays, each with a rectangular window set in a round-headed terracotta surround. The rear elevation has a similar arrangement of pilasters and windows, though partly concealed by a later single-storey flat-roofed extension.

The large hall has a raised stage at the south end with a basket-arched proscenium arch, embellished with pendentives and framed by piers with clasping pilasters. The coved ceiling has mouldings creating compartments, a classical cornice, and pilasters dividing the walls into bays. The former billiard room and reading room now form an open bar area, and some panelling survives.