Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 02/11/2018

TQ 3672
779-/31/10053

PERRY HILL

Livesey Memorial Hall Boundary Wall

GV II

Wall, 1911, built to the west of the Livesey Memorial Hall (LE 1253110), a recreation hall of the same date by SY Shoubridge, Engineer to the South Suburban Gas Company, for the Company’s employees.

MATERIALS: London stock brick with red brick borders and Ruabon terracotta caps and coping.

PLAN: the wall forms the western boundary of the hall, and of the bowling green to the north, and encloses the war memorial in the hall’s forecourt.

DETAILS: the wall is divided into sections by panelled piers with shallow pyramidal caps. Each section has a curved coped top, those to either side of the entrance-way rising to support volutes flanking the taller gate piers. The double iron gates are made by Macfarlane and Co of Glasgow.

Listing NGR: TQ3655972125

History

The Livesey Memorial Hall was built in the north-west corner of the South Suburban Gas Company’s principal site at Bell Green, which in 1911 employed 380 men. Much of the building work was carried out by the Gas Company itself. Sir George Thomas Livesey (1834-1908, knighted in 1902), whom the Livesey Memorial Hall commemorates, was a director of the company for 30 years; an engineer, industrialist and philanthropist, he initiated many technical improvements in the design of gas holders. Livesey was the builder of the Greenwich Gas Works (1883) and was a pioneer of co-partnership (profit-sharing) within the industry. Minutes recording the decision to commemorate Livesey through the erection of a recreation room for the employees note the suitability of the memorial, ‘Bearing in mind the very great interest which was always taken by Sir George in all matters affecting the well-being of the employees’. The hall became the focus of the gaswork’s recreational facilities; a bowling green and tennis courts were also provided in the same part of the site, for the use of the employees. The bowling green survives to the north of the hall, enclosed to the west by the boundary wall; a pavilion, not shown on the 1936 map though  possibly moved from another location, also survives. The listed war memorial (LE 1253111), erected in the hall’s forecourt in 1920, and also enclosed by the wall, commemorates those employees of the South Suburban Gas Company who lost their lives in the First and Second World Wars.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27082528

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings