Our purchase of part of the building had multiple bonuses. It gave the group premises to develop into a centre for our role as a cancer support group and allowed the club to be refurbished and continue to trade as it is today. It has also benefited other groups who can use the centre. Two of the upstairs former offices have been refurbished and are occupied by two trained operatives who offer complimentary therapies.
The original layout of the WMC had a vestibule at the front with an entrance to the left to one bar and seating area, the other to the right gave access to the tap room and bar, which was originally linked to the other. At the back of the tap room was the entrance through to the main bar and seating area in the largest ground floor room. From the tap room, the corridor gave access to the male toilets and stairs up to the games and TV room and further over the upstairs corridor, offices and committee room.
During rework of the building our half of the building was sealed from the remaining WMC, the entrance from the vestibule was bricked up as was the through route to the original main bar. The corridor leading to the toilet had an emergency fire door exit out onto the street. That has now become our main entrance to our half of the building.
No 2 Green Street.
Entrance corridor, reworked toilet with full disabled facilities through the door on the right.
Left at the end of the corridor and you can see that the former tap room bar has been converted to our new downstairs kitchen and serving bar. We have the usual collections of cupboards and drawers, a built in fridge, oven, hob and extractor, sink and our latest addition for the downstairs kitchen, an instant heat counter top boiler. We retained the original bars top ceiling feature but have added LED downlights for the worktops.
The floor in the old tap room sloped two ways, away from the corridor and also slightly down from the bar area. We had the floor levelled during the refurbishment. A bit of a dark image (flash didn't fire) but this is looking from the entrance into the room.
Again here from the kitchen side.
Better image here with the light behind looking back up to the kitchen.
We completed all the bottom floor first so that we could start to put the centre into use for the support group and other users. We recognised that in order to support everyone who may use the building that the upstairs would no be accessible to anyone unable to negotiate the stairs. We looked at options for installing a lift but without major reworking of the building on both floors this was not a realistic option both on the practicality for the amount of need and the cost.
We decided that a stair lift would be the answer and we launched an appeal for funding help. We had not been running the appeal very long when we received a call from Acorn Lifts who are based in Colne, they asked if they could come along and have a look at our problem. Access was given and one of the engineers came and measured up. He then announced that if we were in agreement Acorn would install a lift free of charge! In addition they would maintain it on an annual schedule. The engineer already had the complete kit in his van and installed it in a couple of hours. All the company wanted in return was a bit of publicity which of course we agreed to and actioned via our website, social media and a press release to the local papers. We don't own it but can use it as long as we are in the building, this was a fantastic donation that effectively allowed us to plan phase two and development of the upper floor.
Back out into the corridor and the stairs are straight ahead, the stairs have a right hand turn half way up. Observant folk will have seen the bottom of the stair lift track on the corridor picture. The lift can be manually or remotely controlled from the top or bottom, we tend to park it at the top.
The main upstairs room used to house a full size snooker table, a pool table and a 50" corner console projection TV, so a usefully large space that can lend itself to a range events once we have finished development. It needs to have a separate catering area and have it's own toilet facilities. The end of the room immediately at the top of the stairs is separated from the main room by a pillar which was formerly a double flue from the original cottages which has been left as a supporting structure, the area is directly above the downstairs corridor and toilet and was used as the main office for the club at one time. We have decided to turn this end of the room into another toilet with full disabled access and another galley kitchen area. I measured up and drew up a basic plan for the joiner to work to, the ceiling is high enough to allow us to under draw it and start again in that area with modern LED downlights.
Here is the new studding (already boarded and plastered) and door into what will become the new toilet area. You can seethe old chimney breast with the mounted radiator.
And the other side of the dividing wall which will become the galley kitchen. It's wider than it looks here and will support a corner base unit, sink and drainer, triple drawer and a fitted fridge unit and cupboards.
I have not photographed down the long upstairs corridor with the adjacent rooms. When I went in the centre one of the therapists was in her room and had a client. The end of the upstairs corridor has the emergency exit for the top floor, it exits onto a fire escape above the flat roof and down into the yard at the back of the club.
Earlier this year we benefited from a team from Marks and Spencer's who came along for two full days and provided the labour to repaint the whole length of the corridor and three of the four rooms. One of the rooms is going to be developed as quiet area where anyone can retreat to our maybe utilise for 1 to 1 counselling or support.
Lots to do yet but ongoing with fantastic continued community support.
