Type Concert hall Country United Kingdom Opened 1962 | Architectural style Modernist Inaugurated 1962 | |
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Client County Borough of Croydon Architect Robert Atkinson and Partners Address Park Ln, London CR9 1DG, UK Similar Ashcroft Theatre, Whitgift Centre, East Croydon station, Croydon Clocktower, Museum of Croydon | ||
Last ever look around fairfield halls croydon before closure 2016
Fairfield Halls is an arts, entertainment and conference centre located in Croydon, London. It opened in 1962 and contains a concert hall, theatre and gallery. The large concert hall is regularly used for BBC television, radio and orchestral recordings. Fairfield Halls closed for two years for a £30 million redevelopment in July 2016.
Contents
- Last ever look around fairfield halls croydon before closure 2016
- Fairfield halls concert hall
- As a venue
- The future
- In cinema
- References
Although the venue has been a major venue for professional music, plays, musicals, stand-up comedy and classical music, a significant proportion of Fairfield's programme has been for community events. It was frequently used by local schools as the venue for their annual choral concerts, as well as being regularly used by local music, opera, amateur dramatic and religious organisations. The Concert Hall features a cinema with Croydon's largest cinema screen.
The halls are built on the site of Croydon's historic 'Fair Field' (which hosted a well-known fair up until around 1860), and above disused railway cuttings which used to link the main London to Brighton railway to Croydon Central Station in what is now Queen's Gardens. Between 1930 and 1962 the land was home to both a car park and air raid shelters during the war.
The venue was 50 years old in 2012 and an anniversary concert by the London Mozart Players was attended by the Earl of Wessex. A website was also launched to celebrate both the venue's history and to act as an ongoing archive (see below). It contains 2,000 digitised images accessed via text and keyword searches. This makes it one of the largest digitised venue archives in Europe.
Fairfield halls concert hall
As a venue
The building's concert hall has 1,801 seats (counting the choir stalls), the Ashcroft Theatre has 755, and the Arnhem Gallery is used for standing concerts of up to 400.
Many famous acts have performed at the Fairfield Halls, including The Dubliners, Kenny Rogers, Stevie Wonder, Genesis, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Who, Queen, Morrissey, Status Quo, Chuck Berry, and Petula Clark. Delaney & Bonnie & Friends recorded their live album On Tour with Eric Clapton in the halls, with a band that also featured George Harrison. Rat Scabies and Captain Sensible of the Damned both worked as toilet cleaners at Fairfield Halls, Captain Sensible remarking that he was inspired to take music more seriously after witnessing a T.Rex concert there. Morecambe and Wise's appearance at the halls in 1973 was filmed, the only time that their live stage act was recorded.
Fairfield Halls was also used for British professional wrestling for many years, with various cards having been featured on ITV's World of Sport in the 1970s and 1980s. Fairfield has featured as a location in many films, TV productions and commercials.
The future
Fairfield was run from 1993 to 2016 by a self-financing charity with a board of trustees. The charity was in receipt of an operating grant from Croydon Council; it was placed into administration in July 2016.
Croydon Council, the freeholder of the land, has had various plans to refurbish Fairfield over the years but none of these plans has ever come to fruition. It is now anticipated that around £30m will be spent on redeveloping and modernising Fairfield Halls in the period between 2016 and 2018.
In the summer of 2014 the council paid for the refurbishment of the Arnhem Gallery, the conversion of the former 'Green Room' into the New Studio and the installation of the latest digital projection equipment with Dolby Surround 7.1 in the Concert Hall.
In the spring of 2015 a new set of consultants led by Croydon firm Mott MacDonald was appointed by Croydon Council to deliver a £12m programme on the Fairfield Halls and a separate programme for the remainder of the 'College Green' site.
In February 2016, it was confirmed that the venue would close for two years for redevelopment starting July 2016 as part of the Croydon council's plan for the cultural and educational quarter in the town centre, with new homes, offices and shops as well as a building for Croydon College being built.
In cinema
Fairfield's concert hall appeared briefly in the film The Da Vinci Code as the location of Robert Langdon's speech to students.
The venue also featured in the films Made in Dagenham and Cuban Fury.