Benefactor Steps In To Save Ockham’s Parish Rooms

Published on: 26 Nov, 2019
Updated on: 2 Dec, 2019

The Parish Rooms at Ockham, at risk of being sold and the land redeveloped, can now be saved thanks to a generous benefactor.

Ockham Parish Rooms.

Ockham Parish Councillor Gary Walton said: “A very generous benefactor in Ockham village has just come forward. They have generously donated the whole cost of the refurbishment of the Parish Rooms and apartment.

“The rooms will have a complete make over to a very high standard. The income from the refurbished apartment will only now be needed to cover ongoing maintenance. The name of the benefactor will be revealed at a later date.”

Lady Mary Caroline Lovelace.

Mr Walton adds that the Parish Rooms were a wonderful gift to all Ockham residents in 1920 by generous benefactor, Mary Countess of Lovelace, who was one of the first female architects.

The land on which the Parish Rooms was built was owned by her husband, the Earl of Lovelace.

Guildford Borough Council has recently protected the Arts & Crafts building with a local listing.

Within a petition to the council asking for local listing it was noted that Ockham Parish Rooms had been in use almost continually as a village hall.

More recently it has been closed as users “relocated to other locations, and as a result the caretaker who had been brought up and lived in the house to the rear was evicted. The site has recently been marketed for sale as a development plot by Knight Frank when it was was described as coming on to the market for the first time ever.”

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