WORTLEY HALL

Series

Series Name: Mining Review 7th Year

Issue

Issue No.

Date Released

Jul 1954

Stories in this Issue:

Story

Story No. within this Issue

3 / 3

Summary

BFI synopsis: how a miner, Vin Williams, turned a mansion, Wortley Hall, into a rest home and holiday centre for miners and their families.
NCB Commentary - This is a miners’ dance in the late ancestral home of the Eart of Wharncliffe - and what a story there is behind it. Let the man who was responsible tell us about it.
He is an ex-miner who’s devoted his life to public service through the trades unions - Vin Williams.
So everybody buckled to. There was no shortage of labour here. Painters and plasterers, plumbers and electricians, there wasn’t a craft that you couldn’t find at the Hall, and the miners - they worked on landscaping the derelict gardens and remaking the acres of grounds.
To-day Wortley Hall gives a holiday home in ideal surroundings to anyone who cares to use it. Quite a number of old folk have made it the home of their retirement and live here permanently. Now that the grounds are back in shape again there’s plenty of space to wander around and there are goldern carp and trout to be caught in the lake.
Vin Williams organises summer and weekend schools at the Hall. Here the Yorkshire miners use the library for a conference addressed by Alwyn Machin, the Yorkshire Area President. Smaller groups split up to discuss individual points with men like Coal Board Finance Director Hart.
Men who come on courses or on holiday, often with their families, are acccommodated in the renovated bedrooms of the big hall.
In the evenings they’re entertained like this by concert parties, dances or stage shows.
In three years, starting from scratch, nearly 20,000 people have visited Wortley Hall and £5,000 has been repaid from the money that had to be borrowed to start the project. It’s a great achievement and one in which the miners can be proud of their part.

Researcher Comments

According to bfi records, this story had a budget of £174 14s 9d. Commentary recorded 2 June 1954.

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