NATALYA WILSON finds out why a naked lady, brass bands, blackened walls and thousands of butterfly wings all have their part to play in the story of Appleton Reading Room

WHEN Henry Iles was travelling in the foothills in the Himalayas in Northern India several years ago, he had to do a double-take when passing through the city of Dehradun.

Contemplating the scenery, he spotted a green corrugated iron building, very much like the one he had last sighted in his home village of Appleton-le-Moors, which is perched on the edge of the very English North York Moors.

“It took me aback a bit – it was remarkably similar to Appleton Reading Room,” he said.

These iron and wooden buildings were commissioned and built all over this country and the British Empire from the late 1880s until the 1930s by Glasweigan-based company Speirs and Co, who specialised in the construction of galvanised iron and wooden structures.

“At one point, they could be found all over the world – they were a very colonial thing,” said Henry, who is chairman of Appleton Reading Room.

“There were thousands of them and they were used for all sorts of things – isolation hospitals, churches with bell towers, and Appleton’s – which was built in 1911 – was created as a reading room.”

It came to light in deeds found by one of the villagers that Appleton-le- Moors had had a reading room prior to 1911, situated in a very small cottage.

The person who consequently bought the house had it demolished and so had the present reading room constructed to replace the one he had pulled down.

“It was not so philanthropic though – more that he had to,” added Henry.

“Last year, Mrs Fox found the original reading room minutes book.

The reading room, which cost £75, was built with donations from everyone in the village – not just money, but stone, wood for fencing, all kinds of things. One lady’s father donated stone from his garden where a hole still remains.

“Technically, the land belongs to the Lord of the Manor and so we don’t pay rent but do pay an annual fine, as its common land – the rights go back to the Enclosures Act of the medieval period – an it’s interesting to see the fine was negotiated before the building was built.”

Originally, said Henry, it was mainly used by agricultural workers as an alternative to going to the pub, usually when they ran out of money.

“It was a place to socialise without getting drunk,” added Henry.

Although at the time it was considered fairly much a male preserve, at one point, a ladies’ brass band rehearsed there.

As well as being used for reading and other activities, Appleton Reading Room also contained a billiard table, which was installed in 1913, as there were big leagues in the area up to the 1940s.

“Unfortunately, after the war, it seems that people lost interest in this,” said Henry.

“In the minutes taken two years after the end of the war, it indicates that people had lost interest, stopped paying their subs, and so because they couldn’t get a team together, the reading room closed and the electricity, which only came to the village in the 1940s, was disconnected.”

Eight or nine years ago, Henry and another interested party took it upon themselves to have a look inside the old reading room – but there were’t any keys to be found.

“So we let it be known in the village that we were going to open it with a crowbar and, mysteriously, several sets of keys turned up,” he quipped.

When they gained access, they found that the walls were black with cigarette smoke and that, as the windows had been left open for years, there were thousands of butterfly wings everywhere. The original stove had been taken out, but other than that it seemed fairly intact – including the billiard table.

So a dedicated group took it upon themselves to renovate the reading room and bring the building back into use, consulting everyone in the village as to whether they thought it would be useful.

“One man refused to sign it so his wife said that she would not cook him anymore meals until he did,” laughed Henry.

The National Park gave them a £4,000 grant to maintain the building as it had fallen into disrepair, so they painted it, put in some carpet and a new stove and removed lots of the old wooden furniture and fittings that had been eaten by woodworm.

“We had a vote in the village as to whether we should take out the snooker table and it was decided that it should be put into storage,” said Henry.

“Fortunately, a local man, Robert Aconley, who is a snooker enthusiast and learnt how to play on the table when he lived in the village as a boy, asked if he could buy it for his new house in Doncaster, so we thought that was fantastic.”

A big surprise was in store when they removed the scoreboard from the wall and found, tucked behind it, a very old picture of a naked lady.

“Someone must have popped her in there many years ago, but so far, no-one’s claimed her,” laughed Henry.

The committee acquired another grant to install seating to add the finishing touches to the 32-people capacity room.

Henry says that it was only appropriate that the first club to set up there was the book club in 2004, for which Henry – a designer by trade – has created a bookmark for each of the books read so far, and the film society was started in 2005, with the most popular film so far being The Cave of the Yellow Dog, shown in 2008.

“We have a quadraphonic sound system, great if we are watching a Dolby surround sound film, and a really good projector,” said Henry, adding that many of the pictures shown there are art house films.

The reading room is also used for parish council meetings, speakers, a wildlife group and sometimes the history society meet there.

There are also art exhibitions held there and every year and local artist Janet Hayton hosts her Open Studio there.

At last year’s centenary celebrations, Maggie Tebb made a cake the shape and colour of the reading room and there was a presentation with large photocopies of some of the original documentation on display.

“Many of the villagers who came along to the presentation recognised the names of their relatives and what they had donated to help build the reading room,” said Henry.

“Lots of people keep the reading room going, including the committee, Terry Sunderland, Jim Hall, Richard Hardisty and myself.

Richard single handily repainted the outside of the room this year and fitted the stove, without which the room would be unusable.

“When the reading room was brought back from terminal decline, we needed help with things like wiring, flooring, painting, blinds, joinery, roofing, seating, heavy lifting, fundraising and the stove, so thanks for all their work to Alistair Barker, Anne Taylor, David Hall, Geoff Hutchinson, Janet Hayton, John and Anne Creighton, John Marsden, Richard Hardisty and Roy and John Milestone,” he added.

“The reading room now needs help with the accounts, fundraising and repairs, so thanks for this ongoing assistance to Anne Taylor, Janet Hayton, Jim Hall, John Creighton, Les Edwards, Maggie Tebb, Nicola Oldroyd, Richard Hardisty and Terry Sunderland.”

Henry adds that many of the villagers have an affection for their reading room.

“I think they are pleased that we have taken it back as a lot remember it in use when they were children,” he said.