The local community has been working tirelessly in the last few years to restore the hall post-Covid and to help it thrive for years to come.
The village of roughly 130 residents, have been applying to organisations to secure funding to install 12 solar panels on the roof of the village hall and to install heat pumps to the rear of the building.
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A total of £20,000 is needed for the work that will make the building more environmentally friendly and ensure to village remains sustainable in the future.
£10,000 has been secured already from Low Carbon Dorset and the National Lottery Fund has contributed over £9,500.
Sheila Milton, Secretary of Langton Herring Village Hall, said: “We are continually struggling to get money and support for the village and National lottery really helped us.”
Villagers inside the village hall last week(Image: Langton Herring Village Hall)
The planning application was granted approval from Dorset Council in May and in a heritage statement supporting the application, it is reported that the panels will not be publicly visible and will not detract from the historic building’s character.
The heat pumps are also low noise and are said to not cause disruption to nearby residents.
The historic village has roots dating back to 1086, where it is mentioned in the Domesday Book.
Residents are fiercely passionate about keeping the local spirit alive. As previously reported, the villagers raised over £550,000 to save their local pub, The Elm Tree Inn, after it closed in 2023.
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Locals came up with innovative and quirky ways to come up with the money, and the pub officially reopened in July.
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Ms Milton said: “The pub has been an enormous boost to the village. We have been really pleased because locals were finding it really difficult without it.”
The fate of the village hall is also of interest to residents for personal reasons, as official owners of the property.
Ms Milton said: “The hall was built in 1845 by the church and ran until 1956 as a school. It was then a church hall for some time until 1974 when the residents bought it for £150. So if you move to Langton Herring, or buy a property, you own part of the hall.”
The project will officially get underway in November.