Wurdale’s community heart for 100 years
It still stands square on redgum stumps hewn all those years ago, its stature small and simple but its legacy sturdy and profound.
Up Wurdale Road, framed by its arc of cypress trees, the Wurdale Hall has provided a welcoming place to be for its community across the flow and ebb of 100 years.
Generations have passed through its doors across the storied decades – for dances, for gymkhanas, wedding receptions, school concerts, Christmas parties, church services, polling days, fashion parades, meetings, meetings, meetings, playgroups, workshops, wakes and more.
Once again it rang with music, conversation and laughter last weekend as community members came together to celebrate the grand achievement of its centenary with a bush dance and meal.
“Built by the community, for the community,” the commemorative booklet declared, and its stories attest to the vision, determination and volunteer commitment of so many who have gone before.
Geographic quirk
The hall was opened on 22 August 1925 on land gifted by the Hopkins family, and legend attests at the outset it became a geographic quirk.
When founding committee members had sought a loan in support of a new Wurdi Boluc and Wensleydale districts hall the bank manager looked at the lengthy name and swiftly abbreviated for paperwork purposes, and the title of Wurdale was born.
The strokes of the pen led to the naming of Wurdale Hall, Wurdale Road and Wurdale Fire Brigade, but Wurdale doesn’t really exist at all.
The building was opened as Wurdale Memorial Hall in honour of district service men and women, with stately rolls of honour gilt and framed on it walls.
Selfless volunteer committees have powered its operations and maintained its purpose across the years, generating funds for so many improvements, with extensions, installation of a 300 candlepower Tilley lamp in 1947 and connection of electricity in ’55 among the most significant of early days.
Installation of a new floor was completed in 1983, indoor toilets in ’84, addition of an adjoining playground in 2016, history board in ’18 and an external public toilet in ’21.
Challenging times
Not all of the hall’s eras have been kind. In the late 1930s there was significant community and committee discord over the impact of proposed fee changes, and through the late 1960s and ‘70s it fell into years of disuse and little maintenance as population declined and schools closed.
New flushes of people shifting to the district helped stimulate its revival, and in 1979 the former Winchelsea Shire Council took on its ownership, with the support of a newly-framed committee of management.
Surf Coast Shire Council assumed the role after its creation in 1994 and continues to support the hall’s administration and maintenance, in partnership with the Wensleydale Rural Community Group.
Neville Mawson, Stewart Mathison, Peter Marshman and Lesley Bell, who now lives in Sydney, number among the few surviving members from the last community hall committee.
Neville, 80, and Stewart, 82, joined last weekend’s centenary celebrations with immense pride for all that the hall has provided for the community so close to their hearts, joyed to see younger generations there.
In the days before the event they met at the hall and shared fragments of its immense story from across the years, and paused for a photograph inside.
Chairs awaiting occupants lined the walls, the hardwood dancefloor gleamed in the bright winter light and the empty space was crowded with echoes from 100 Wurdale years.
People interested in receiving a copy of the centenary commemorative booklet can email Christine Trotter via cljgypsy20@gmail.com
Council supported the Wurdale Hall centenary celebration through our Event Grants Program.