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INNELLAN FROM THE BEGINNING OF TIME TO 1897– IT’S A PREQUEL!!!!!

Written by on 13/06/2014

innellan village hall

Innellan Public Hall was opened in 1903, and has been the central of the village community ever since.

In 2003 the 100th anniversary of the hall when much celebration should have been taking place in the building that had for 100 years celebrated so many national and  local historic events, the hall was feeling it’s age and some serious repair was badly needed. As had happened some 100 years before  when the community set out to raise the monies to build the hall the community set to the task of raising the finance to refurbish the call to a standard that would cater for another 100 years.

It was no easy task but seven years later the hall again was fully fit for purpose and looking forward to serving the community as it had done for over 100 years

Although seven years after the official 100th anniversary of the hall it was decided by the Trustees to celebrate the life of the hall by putting together a simple archive celebrating the first one hundred of the hall and many of the events that had taken place there.

Margaret Hubbard a local historian and archivist took on the task of letting it be know  what was planned and the gathering of historic information. As work progressed what emerged was a fascinating picture of the community which brought the hall into being.

In the summer of June 2010 the celebration of the hall’s first 100 years began with an  exhibition of exhibits provided by the local Innellan community and put together by Margaret and her team . It had been decided that the exhibition would cover the years 1898 to 1921, 1898 being just prior to the 1899 inaugural meeting in the Royal Hotel to plan the hall and to end in 1921, when the War Memorial was unveiled. A number of the names on the memorial are of men, who had been the village children watching the hall being built.

The exhibition was a great success with all who attended asking many questions and looking for souvenirs of this unique event.

In response to demand, the Trustees decided that the material should be turned into book form, rather than storing it away where folk could not see it. Incredibly in the November of 2010 the book ‘From Scenes Like These Innellan 1898-1921’, was to great acclaim.

In the course of preparing the first exhibition, and then its accompanying book, the enthusiasm from the local community for the project was overwhelming with many, many people offering pictures and stories and histories of their own.

It was clear that the story of Innellan was of great interest, not only to those who live here, but to people scattered all over the globe who have a strong connection with the village so much so that  a second exhibition and a second volume taking the archive from 1921 to 1960.

In November 2012 a third volume was published covering the years 1960-1992.                                                                                                                                   This covered  the ‘American years’ and US servicemen responded to the request to write about their time in the village.

At the time of the publication of the third volume Margaret told us it would be some years before a continuation of  the trilogy would be considered, what she didn’t mention was a prequel!

Celebrating the fourth volume from “From Scenes Like These” to be published later in the year we have an exhibition celebrating “From the beginning of Time –1897”

Margaret Hubbard local historian and archivist along with Eleanor Stevenson and children from the Innellan Primary School will be visiting the Dunoon Community Radio studio Monday 9th June after 5.00pm to tell us what we can expect to see and learn from the “From Scenes Like These” Prequel which starts with the making of Toward at the beginning of time up to 1897 and that is a very long, long, long time.

The exhibition is open to the general public Saturday 14th June and Sunday 15th June