On Saturday 29th and Sunday 30^th October Lowestoft Town Hall will be open for it’s first ‘Town Hall Take Over’ as part of the Lowestoft Town Hall redevelopment project.

New hoarding designs created by young people from YMCA Trinity youth group will be unveiled on the Mariner Street window hoardings.  The young people have been working in collaboration with local Graffiti artist Stane, and Lowestoft Cultural Education Partnership to create designs inspired by Lowestoft’s history.

The Town Hall building will be open from 10am -3pm on Saturday 29^th and Sunday 30^th October 10am-2.30pm for people to view the Council chamber. There will also be an opportunity to view displays about the history of the Town Hall site and local industries and the progress of the Town Hall’s redevelopment project.

The redevelopment project will transform the building into a multi functioning building which will become the home of Lowestoft Town Council and an inclusive centre for the community and visitors. Lowestoft Town Council has been awarded a development grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to progress its plans to a delivery stage application and deliver a pilot heritage activity programme to provide opportunities for local people to get involved, learn new skills and find out more about Lowestoft’s history.  The project is also supported by the Towns Fund, the Architectural Heritage Fund, Historic England and East Suffolk Council.

On both days the ‘Memories bike’ will be moored and ready to deliver fun, heritage inspired activities such as making stained glass windows using waste plastic, badge making, and Museum object handling.

There will also be evocative postcards with images from the Jack Rose collection to prompt people’s memories of the Town Hall and local industries. These will be used as inspiration for a new video poem created and produced by Poetry People.

Local Historian David Butcher will talk on the history of the Town Hall site from 2.30pm-3.30pm Sunday 30^th October. Free Tickets are available via Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/430372424507

If you can’t make it to this ‘Town Hall Take Over’ you can explore the Town Hall virtually through this Virtual Tour developed by Hugh Davies Exterior - SeekBeak You’ll be able to see places in the Town Hall that you can’t normally visit, ring the Town Hall bell, find out more about the history of the building. Over the coming months, it’ll be the go-to place to find out updates about the Town Hall refurbishment project. It will also act as a virtual heritage hub with changing exhibitions which tell the story of Lowestoft and link to the many museums and heritage organisations in the Town.