School of the Arts

The School of Arts building in Bundarra has been in constant community use for over a century but it is not known exactly when it was erected. The land on which it stands was dedicated as a "School of Arts Site" on 17 January 1889 so it is assumed that the building was erected very soon after that. The materials and techniques used in its construction would certainly bear this out.

The building began as a simple weatherboard hall with an entrance through a wooden porch at the front. An addition to the building was approved in November 1913 to provide a supper room along the length of the southern side and a kitchen and other facilities at the back.

Another significant alteration took place in 1931 when a brick extension replaced the original wooden porch at the front. This extension, with its most interesting mix of brick-laying styles, included two cloak rooms, one on either side of a short entrance hallway. One of these cloakrooms was equipped with an open fireplace and was clearly meant to double as an office and meeting room. It also had a small hatch for the collection of admission fees.

The floor of the main hall was replaced in the 1950s although the original 1913 pine flooring of the supper room remains. At some stage, probably at the time the brick front was added, the original wooden piles under the building were supplemented by brick piles.

Its Story

Few details are available of the early use of the building but, until comparatively recent times, it was the only general purpose meeting and function facility of its kind in the town. It is equipped with a stage and two small "dressing rooms" and was frequently used for performances and presentations of one kind or another. The addition of the fairly large supper room and back stage area indicates that this community function was very well established by the year 1913.

There is no formal record of the early use of the building as a library or reading room but it is highly likely that it served this function as well. It certainly did so at different times from the 1930s onwards, when one of the new cloak rooms was used for this purpose. Nor is there any record of the early use of the building for lectures and educational programs although the period since the Second World War has seen its frequent use as a venue for TAFE courses, particularly in wool classing.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Bundarra School of Arts is that its community centre function has continued, uninterrupted, until the present day. Local residents can list, within their living memories, an amazing number and variety of different uses for the building including:

• baby health care facilities
• birthday parties
• farewells and "welcome homes" to soldiers
• fashion parades and flower shows
• gatherings after funerals
• market days and antique fairs
• music lessons
• polling facilities for Council elections
• regular Balls staged by the Church of England and Catholic churches, the RSL, the CWA and others.
• School concerts
• travelling performers
• weekly dances, usually on Friday nights

Local Mr Stan Berryman, has in his possession, a dance program used at the Bachelors Ball, held in the hall on 24 June 1904 and there are newspaper accounts of a Race Ball held there on 8 April 1916. A delightful story tells how the names to be placed on the Town's Second World War Honour Board were discussed and decided during a dance held in the hall soon after the War!

During the 1960s, it provided the venue for regular performances by an innocently named and enthusiastic local community group called "The Gay Company"!

Its Later Use

A newspaper account of 1944 speaks of an active School of Arts Committee with public election of its officers and a paid Secretary. During the next thirty years or so, this committee gradually declined in significance. The building ceased to be an independent School of Arts on 25 March 1977 and became the property of the Uralla Shire Council. After this, however, its management and maintenance remained and still is in the hands of a local committee who refer maintenance issues to Uralla Shire Council.

The revived committee has been making improvements to the hall and to this end acquired a grant from state government to replace ovens and refrigerator and purchase microwave ovens for community use for the various functions that are held there. It now houses a Cummunity Technology Centre for those needing casual use of the internet or computers and movie club is held there ever fortnight. The building is also used for playgroup and Gwydir Rivers Quilters.

Its Significance to the Community

The Bundarra School of Arts is somewhat unique in that its community service function has continued from its very beginnings to the present day, almost all of that time under the guidance of a local "School of Arts Committee".

The building represents a rather unique example of a facility which has survived, almost in its original form, for at least 110 years and which shows every sign of continuing to serve an important and much valued community function.

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