John Knowles

I have had an offer to buy The Former Jarrow Civic Hall accepted by the local authority. The purchase was completed on Friday 15^th April. The restoration and repair work should commence soon.

The building is directly across the road from my existing business JK Clothing Ltd.

The news of the purchase was broken by the South Shields Gazette on Monday 18th April.

It is our intention to bring the ballroom back to its original condition and open it for use for functions such as live music, dancing, private functions and to consider any other function that people want to see it used for (subject to planning permission).

We have had discussions with entertainment companies who can provide theme party nights e.g. West end musicals, pantomime, tribute artists etc.

The room would be made available to the sequence dancers, ballroom and tea dancers that used to use the hall prior to its closure.

There is a room alongside the ballroom which we are calling the ballroom lounge. We intend to use this room as a restaurant/lounge. There is a large kitchen adjacent to this room.

There are 2 smaller function rooms on the ground floor. These could be used for children's parties, christenings, craft classes, exercise type functions, children's play area, day lettings etc.

These function rooms will also be used for some subsidised functions particularly for older people. Functions such as craft classes, social functions and computer classes. The computer classes would teach in the use of face book, twitter and skype so that people can keep in touch with friends and relatives no longer in the local area.

There is also a large kitchen on the ground floor near to these function rooms so refreshments could be provided for functions in these rooms.

There will be a fully equipped gym on the ground floor.

The first stage of the restoration would be to bring the ground floor gym and function rooms into use as soon as possible with the ballroom and restaurant opening later.

Any suggestions as to the use of the ballroom could be emailed to;
johnknowles@jarrowcivic.co.uk

Instead of having a grand opening night we are going to have a week long celebration of the reopening of the Jarrow Civic Hall where we will be able to showcase all that the Civic has to offer.

We are hoping to have the Civic opened in late summer/early autumn.

Here are some photos of the The Jarrow Civic;
This is how the Civic originally looked. The building was then called the Jarrow Mechanics Institute.

On 22nd July 1863 Mrs Jane Palmer of the Palmer ship building family laid the foundation stone.
The building's famous clock was a gift from Lady Northbourne, who also gave Christ Church to the people of Jarrow.

The building was gifted to the town by famous shipbuilding magnate Sir Charles Mark Palmer in 1877.