Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

Hoxton Hall

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Public transit
  
Hoxton

Years active
  
1863–1871

Capacity
  
120

Phone
  
+44 20 7684 0060

Owner
  
Hoxton Community Trust

Architect
  
James Mortimer

Opened
  
1863

Designation
  
Listed building

Hoxton Hall

Type
  
Community and touring performance

Current use
  
Community centre and performance space

Address
  
130 Hoxton St, London N1 6SH, UK

Similar
  
White Bear Theatre, Hackney Empire, Courtyard Theatre - London, Hen and Chickens Theatre, Etcetera Theatre

Profiles

Inside the refurbished hoxton hall


Hoxton Hall is a community centre and performance space in Hoxton, at 130 Hoxton Street, in the London Borough of Hackney.

Contents

A grade II* listed building, the theatre was first built as a Music hall in 1863, as MacDonald's Music hall. It is an unrestored example of the saloon-style. In the theatre, an iron-railed, two tier galleried auditorium rises on three sides, supported on cast iron columns, above a small, high, multi-tiered stage. It survives, largely in its original form, as for many years it was used as a Quaker meeting house.

The music hall lost its performance licence in 1871, due to complaints by the police; it was sold, and the new owners applied for a licence in 1876, but were again rejected. William Isaac Palmer (1824–1893) purchased it on behalf of the Blue Ribbon Gospel Temperance Mission in 1879. Palmer was an heir to the Huntley and Palmer biscuit family and spent much of his fortune on charity. On Palmer's death, the hall passed to the Bedford Institute, a Quaker organisation dedicated to running adult schools and alleviating the results of poverty.

Today, the hall is used as a community centre and performance space.

Wild beasts live at hoxton hall london 7th august 2009


Notable recent performances

  • On invitation from Lisa Goldman, artistic director of award-winning theatre company The Red Room, Leo Asemota created video installations and a portfolio of photographic portraits of Hoxton residents for the site-specific production Hoxton Story which opened at Hoxton Hall, to performances on 10 September 2005
  • Robert Newman filmed a television programme entitled A History of Oil for More4, at the Hoxton Hall (later released on DVD). A mixture of stand-up comedy and introductory lecture on geopolitics and peak oil, in the show, based on his touring show, Apocalypso Now Newman argues that twentieth-century Western foreign policy, including World War I, should be seen as a continuous struggle by the West to control Middle Eastern oil. The peak oil projection is based on Richard Heinberg's book The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies.
  • References

    Hoxton Hall Wikipedia