Oddfellows Hall

Image: © Evelyn Simak Taken: 25 Dec 2008

In Lifeboat Plain. Oddfellows Hall was built in 1867 as the first Royal National Lifeboat Institution station in Sheringham, with its ground floor being a standard RNLI boathouse. After public funds were raised a second floor could be added, which was reached by an outside staircase. This addition also served as a reading room where fishermen could rest and be educated in their free time. It was also used as a venue for public meetings and entertainments until a larger hall was built in the 1890s. Due to repeated storm damage there had been ongoing problems launching the lifeboats from the slipway and in 1904 the lifeboat station was moved about one mile to the west, with the old boathouse now being used as a store, when the RNLI received a request from the Loyal Fishermens Lodge to use the upstairs room as a meeting place. Around 1905 a local squire, Henry Morris Upcher, the then owner of Sheringham Hall, purchased the building and the RNLI stopped using the hall, which was bought by the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows in 1931. Sold to a caterer from Great Yarmouth in 1947 and sold again to a Norwich shoe manufacturer a year later, the building was eventually purchased by the Sheringham Urban District Council in 1960, who by 1963 had bought and installed a large model railway layout upstairs. In 1974 the ownership of the hall was transferred to the new North Norfolk District Council and let commercially but after the lease had expired the building stood empty the following 12 years. In 2007 the Sheringham Plus Community Partnership agreed to lease with North Norfolk District Council, with the sole purpose of bringing the hall back into community use. The venue has won three awards in 2008.

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