Ayton Village, Berwickshire Scotland

A historic parish

in the beautiful East Berwickshire area of the Scottish Borders

Ayton Community Hall Association - Home
 

 

 

Rear/East facing elevation of the Ayton Community Hall before the refurbishment

You can find Ayton Community Hall up the vennel next to what was the Black Bull pub on the High Street. It’s only been the Community Hall since the end of March 2008. Prior to that, the hall was owned by Ayton and Burnmouth Church. The Church was finding the upkeep of the hall quite difficult and planned to sell it at some point. A group of local villagers became aware of this and decided that, if possible, it should be purchased and upgraded to benefit the whole community.

A village meeting was called in February 2005 and at that meeting Ayton Community Hall Association (ACHA) was formed. A committee took on the job of organising the Association, with the long term task of creating a ‘small but modern centrally situated hall’. The Church agreed to sell the hall to the Association for a nominal £100, but it took around three years to sort out various legal and ownership matters, but now the hall belongs to the Association.

In those three years the Association became a Scottish Charity (SC 037032) and the committee set about thinking how best to develop the hall as well as embarking on a fund raising programme.

The first ideas for the hall involved building a larger one on ground at the rear and incorporating the existing building, but after an application from the Lottery Fund was rejected it was decided it would be more realistic to modernise the building within the existing walls. This is was was done and the work was completed in the spring of 2011.