Corstorphine+Public+Hall

=Corstorphine Public Hall Company Limited=

Company Number: SC002122 Date of Incorporation: 28 February 1891 Contact Details: 14 Kirk Loan, Corstorphine, Edinburgh, EH12 7HD Operating Details: Active Other names (if known): Function of Company*: Letting of own property (7020) Headquarters/Base of Operations Location: Corstorphine, Edinburgh Area of Operation: Corstorphine, Edinburgh


 * Taken from Standard Industrial Classification 2003, as used by Companies House in 2010

Records
Held By: privately held- please write to the Company Secretary at the above address for details Scope/type: Minute books dating from c.1930s. Some other records. Conditions governing access/use: Enquiries considered on an individual basis. Related records: Please see the book mentioned below for copies of records of the Company, including shares.

Company History
This company was formed in 1891 to supply funds to build a public hall in Corstorphine and to subsequently rent the building for use to locally based organisations. The impetus for the Company’s formation was the growing number of well populated community organisations in Corstorphine in the late 1800s. The Corstorphine Literary Society had some 450 members, but there wasn’t a big enough space in Corstorphine to house a meeting of every member. The committee of trustees raised enough money to ensure incorporation in 1891, and the foundation stone was laid in June that year. The initial plans featured a library and reading room and a bowling green. The library itself was only built in 1902, following protracted negotiations with Andrew Carnegie and Edinburgh Council.

There were initially 1825 shares issued, of which some 925 were bought by the literary association (this meant that the Literary Society had to incorporate itself to ensure this shareholding was valid). The remainder of the shares were mostly bought by local people. There was a second issue of shares in 1975 (up to the number allowed in the memorandum) mostly to ensure the company could continue to maintain the hall.

The Hall was opened in 1892, and quickly became well-used by clubs, schools and churches in the local area. However rent was sometimes irregular, and it took regular donations (probably from Thomas Johnston, who had gifted the company the land) to keep the Company and the Hall afloat. In 1936 the Library part of the Hall (which had come under control of Edinburgh Council) was sold off the Scouts and a new public library opened in the parish. The Scouts sold on the library again in 1961. In 1980 the company signed a 21 year lease with the Corstorphine Tall Oaks youth Association, which has been renewed and continues to the present day (though they are now Corstorphine Youth and Community Centre). The Company nominally manages the Hall, though in reality the youth group run the day-to-day operations.

For more information please see Leslie Nobbs, Corstorphine Public Hall Movement (Pen-y-coe Press, Edinburgh 2002) available from the Corstorphine Trust []. With thanks and acknowledgment to the Corstorphine Trust and its archivist Frances McRae