After opening its doors over 90 years ago, Malton's Milton Rooms has long been a staple of the town. Howard Campion, a Trustee at the Malton and Norton Heritage Centre, reports.
IT is hard to imagine Malton without the Milton Rooms: they do seem to be a 'Town Hall' in many respects.
A registered charity having had multiple uses since opening in 1931, they were created in celebration of the 21st birthday of Viscount Milton.
He was a prominent Fitzwilliam family member, their family seat being Milton Hall near Peterborough.
Of the various types of functions that have been held in the centre, different ones do stand out above the rest for individual people.
Malton Grammar School speech days were held there from 1951 to 1958 whilst the Saturday night 'Seven - O - Clock Rock' moved from its original cramped setting in Spital Street to the Milton Rooms in 1957 and became an established social occasion.
It was one of the earliest 'discos' before the term became established as part of our everyday language.
One remembers Frankie Vaughan's 'Kewpie Doll' and Jackie Wilson's 'Reet Petite'.
The hall was built over the top of the Masonic Lodge which is still underneath the main structure and is frequently used but not open to the general public.
At the rear of the Milton Rooms are the Assembly Rooms/Subscription Rooms which front onto Yorkersgate and house Malton Museum.
On the site of the present Milton Rooms, there was originally a pub called the 'Old Globe' and it can be seen in a painting by the wife of a local GP, Mrs Forsyth.
They lived in Forsyth House at the top of the market and the painting shows the view from their upper room.
Further along the lower part of the market are retail outlets, one of which was 'The Silver Grid' fish and chip shop which was still largely unchanged internally (chrome fittings) even up to the mid-eighties.
Read more from Howard Campion:
- Looking back at The Shambles in Malton
- A look back at Norton's St Nicholas Hospital
- From courtship to cross country – a look back at a popular Malton path
Its sign lettering was concocted out of a recovered sign from a shop frontage in Norton (see photos) by an out of town entrepreneur in the 1930s who started the business and obviously believed in recycling.
There have also been Silver Grids in both Scarborough and Whitby.
Next door and nearer to the Royal Oak was a radio/gramophone retailer where the first auto-change record player (gramophone) was demonstrated (78 rpm of course).
To avoid confusion, there is also a Royal Oak in Old Malton.
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