Update 24 April 2026.

The hall reopened on Monday February 9^th after a period of closure, pending new arrangements being made for safe removal of the current roof and construction of its replacement.

Facilities
Chairs and tables are now available as usual, as are the kitchen and toilets at the front of the building, but the stage curtains have been removed.

Bookings
Bookings can be made in the usual way, by contacting Shirley Cherry, our Bookings Officer.

The April update on the roof project is given below. The hall trustees thank all users of the hall for your patience and understanding. 

Contractors

Unfortunately, the contractors who we had intended would do the work informed us at short notice that they had taken on a large-scale contract and would not be available, after all, to undertake the project. 

Trustee action

The withdrawal of the contractors means that the Trustees must now, in consultation with appropriate professionals, readvertise the job, which will now take into account the following factors:

• The possiblity that the price of the re-roofing will be significantly higher than originally quoted, due to inflation, and including costs of asbestos safety measures (see the next point),
• The need for safe practices to be re-addressed, following the discovery - in a specialist survey - of some asbestos above the ceiling that was not previously known.  As trustees we have a responsibility to electrical and building contractors, and also to neighbouring residents, to ensure that this material, as well as the existing asbestos cement roofing tiles and any dust from them, is at all stages, safely handled and disposed of.    
• Ensuring that appropriate professional supervision of all statutory Health and Safety measures is in place.  

All of these considerations may involve us in a higher level of expenditure than was previously envisaged.  In addition to this, in recent months there have also been some losses – when the hall was (in good faith) closed, there was a loss of income from hire fees, but also some ongoing costs (e.g., energy, insurance, etc.) which meant that funds were depleted by about £1500 per month.

During the period of closure, it was also necessary to address the problem of woodworm infestation.  This unforeseen expense could not be delayed.  The infestation in the stage floor and supporting structure, along with the structure beneath the dressing room area behind the stage, has now been professionally treated.  This, along with clearance of a large quantity of wood, which could also have contained woodworm, and other obsolete items, thus reducing the hall’s fire risk, cost £2700 from our funds.  We need to raise further funds to cover these  losses, and the expenditure on woodworm treatment underlines the need for us to hold funds (NB not those raised in support of replacement of the roof) that can be used if other unforeseen emergencies arise.  The cost of clearing the area under the stage would have been greater had trustees and friends not assisted with part of the clearance, which was a very dusty and unpleasant operation.  It was also possible to have the above asbestos survey done, plus a detailed fire safety survey, and electrical testing during the period of closure.      

The hall trustees have aimed to enable the work itself, and the planning and preparation to be done in full compliance with building and safety regulations, but also as prudently as possible, and have been supported in this effort by the professionals we have engaged. 

That said, it will be important for us to ensure that the costs of the project are known, and are more than covered.  Fortunately, the Village and Community Hall Grant of £15,000 from Kent County Council is still available to us, but more grants will be needed to ensure that we are able to realise this project, which we have undertaken on the advice of a building surveyor, and after a careful process of selecting contractors.

In the time since the reopening, we have continued to receive helpful advice and guidance from Funding for All, which has enabled us to identify trusts and grant-awarding bodies to which we can apply, and identify elements of our expenses for which we are likely (e.g., building costs) or unlikely (e.g., architects’ fees) to obtain funding.  Through this connection we have learned that the application process is now often slower because AI is frequently used by applicants, which has increased the number of applications that are not within a given trust’s or foundation’s priorities.

Since closure, thanks to the support of Paul Chamberlain (member for Herne Bay East) we have received a Combined Members’ Grant of £960, and have been consulting foundations and preparing applications for rather larger sums from multiple foundations.  The turnaround time for decisions and awards of grants can be a few months.

So this process is, unfortunately, slow, and (disappointingly for us all) likely to take some time. 

If you would like to contribute directly to our "Raising the Roof” appeal, you can do this via our GoFundMe link:  https://gofund.me/a23f11cd

Your support will help us in our aim both to renew a much-loved building that has long been at the heart of the local community, and to ensure that its facilities remain useful to current and future clients.

This hall is used by about fifteen different organisations

resulting in about one thousand five hundred visitors every month!

Photos, hall details and hire rates can be

found by clicking on the tabs to the left

To get in touch with any of the individual groups

please click on the "Organisations" tab above 

and a list will appear.  Details of how to make 

contact can be found within each listing.

If you would like to make a general enquiry or perhaps you would like to

consider hiring the hall for a specific event, please click on "Contact Us"

There has been a hall on this site since the 1920’s.  The original hall was known as “Reculver and Beltinge Parish Hall” and was a 1st World War ex-army hut purchased for £200 and made of weatherboard with a corrugated roof.

A committee of gentlemen ran the hall and anyone wanting to hire it had to apply to the commitee.

During the Second World War, the committee kindly gave furniture including settees to the Officer’s mess in Gainsborough Drive and to the soldiers club at Reculver Lodge and the Beltinge Auxiliary Fire Service.

In 1946 it was decided to re-name the hall “Reculver & Beltinge Memorial Hall” in honour of those that fought in the two world wars.

Meanwhile the hall was beginning to show the passing of time and with rats under the kitchen floor it was decided it was time to have a new hall.

Residents of the village went around collecting money from the local inhabitants and that’s how the money was raised for today’s hall.  The freehold of the present site was purchased in 1954 and in April 1959 the foundation stone for today’s hall was laid.

The hall has nothing to do with the local council.  It is governed by the Charities Commission on behalf of the villagers and is run by a voluntary committee of trustees duly elected each year from people who live in the parish of Reculver and by representative committee members from the groups that hire the hall on a regular basis.

Over the years these committees of volunteers have raised money and applied for grants to improve the hall and to keep up to date with all the rules and regulations needed to allow events to take place and to provide facilities for the disabled.