Hall

Walked up to the local shop around 9.30am on Monday. All I needed was potatoes and carrots but, of course as one does, came back with a few other odds and ends as well. Thankfully, the Scotmid at Haggs barely stocks the essentials, so it was never going to be the case that I would return with a tent, swingball, dog grooming kit and flat-packed furniture, but the raspberries were too good to leave on the shelf. It was my only venture outdoors all day.

On my way I took a photo of the local church hall, which ended up being my Blip for the day.

Haggs Parish Church has another, more recent, addition to its halls adjacent to the church building, and the larger organisations such as the Boys' Brigade company use the local community centre for their meetings. But this building intrigued me, with its decorative shields on the front, and I reckoned it hadn't been built originally as a church all. And so it proved. A wee bit of online searching found the following in a booklet prepared for the church's 175th Anniversary in 2015:

The Russell Memorial Hall was erected in 1893 by the people of the district in memory of Mr James Russell of Longcroft, who had left £100 and a free site besidethe church for its erection. The hall long continued to be the centre of all social activities in the district. During the Second World War it was taken over by the War Department who allowed it to fall into disrepair. In the end it passed into the hands of the Russell family which put it in order again and it once more became the centre of social affairs. Mr J Russell Jnr could not continue to afford its upkeep and so, in February 1955, it was bought by the church. It required quite a lot of work to make it suitable for the church's purposes and at times was used as classrooms for Longcroft school.

Haven't found any information about the shields that adorn the building's feont, so perhaps they were just decorative after all.