Arborfield Village Hall History Page


  • One of the best-known figures in Reading and the county, Mr. J H Simonds was a director of Barclays Bank, Ltd., of H. and G. Simonds Ltd., and chairman of directors of Reading Building Society. He was a Deputy Lieutenant for the county and became a Reading borough magistrate in 1934.
  • In the late 1920s he gave Arborfield residents a plot of land on which to build a Village Hall.
  • The Simonds family had lived in the area for centuries and their estate encompassed around half the buildings in Arborfield Cross. John Simonds provided the land for the building of the hall and donated a fifth of the building costs. The rest of the money needed was raised by various fund-raising events, subscriptions, loans and grants. The idea of a village hall was first raised by Mr Simonds in 1926 when he was Chair of Newland Parish Council.
  • In April 1931 the state of the finances for building the proposed village hall are recorded as “in hand or anticipated £810”. With a grant from the Carnegie Trust of £190 and a loan from the Council of Social Services for £250. This was considered to be sufficient funds to proceed with building. 7 months later in October 1931 the hall was officially opened.


•      The Village Hall is often assumed to be run by the Parish Council, but it is in fact run as a Charity by a group of volunteer Trustees, assisted by a Management Committee made of representatives from the Parish, the Parish Council and Regular Hirers and other user groups.

•      The Trustees are bound by strict rules set up by the Charity Commission, and we also have a “Governing Document” that was established when the hall was opened in 1931.

•      It is “owned” by all of us who live in what is now the Parish of Arborfield and Newland.


The objectives of the hall are set out in the Conveyance Document.


  “To provide a physical space for the purposes of physical and mental recreation, social, moral and intellectual development through the medium of reading and recreation rooms, library, lectures, classes, recreations and entertainments or otherwise, as may be found expedient for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Parish of Arborfield in the County of Berkshire and its immediate vicinity, without distinction of sex or of political or other opinions”.