Howden Park Centre

For over forty years, Howden Park Centre has been integral to the cultural output of Livingston so I thought I would look, briefly, at its history.

Invitation to the opening of Howden Park Centre, 1972

In 1972, as part of the tenth anniversary celebrations of the Livingston Development Corporation, the stable block and coach house of Howden House were developed into an arts and conference centre.

 The building was opened by the actor Andrew Cruickshank. This new centre provided the Mews Theatre, an exhibition space, and accommodation for other groups involved in the arts. The Centre was administered by the Community Development Team of the Livingston Development Corporation until the Corporation's Wind-Up in 1997, when the Centre was taken on by the newly formed West Lothian Council.  Refurbished and extended, Howden Park Centre reopened in Spring 2009 following redevelopment to designs created by architects Nicoll Russell Studios.  In 2010 the Centre was named "Building of the Year" by the Edinburgh Architectural Association.



Cover of brochure for conference facilities
at Howden Park Centre



The local amateur dramatics society, The Livingston Players, put on three shows a year in the theatre, and have done since before there was a theatre.  Again, even before the buliding’s conversion, the stable block had been used by Livingston Arts Group as a meeting place and the Corporation promised to incorporate for facilities to use once the building had been converted – the group still meets there today. There have also been countless business conferences and art exhibitions and concerts and gigs held at the centre.



Livingston Development Corporation letter
regarding management of the Centre, 1974



In the archive we hold a variety of material relating to the centre.  We have the agreement to let the stables to Livingston Art Group, for example, and the minutes of the management group that directed the conversion of the building (and papers to do with the management of the facility in general). We also have brochures that advertise the conference facilities of the centre. More importantly, the Livingston Players, have, over the last few years, been depositing their records with us so we also hold a record of their performances.  We do, of course, as with anything that was built by the LDC, also hold an abundant amount of technical data on the construction and renovation of the building!

A lot of the cultural, social and economic conditions of Livingston today are a direct result of the decisions made in the 1970s - Howden Park Centre is one of the most positive results of those decision.  

Going back before Livingston New Town and the LDC, during World War II a bomb fell on the building Tuesday 25 June 1940 a bomb fell on the coach house and stables.  Mrs Maria Fleming and her granddaughter Margaret, aged 10, were killed.  These were the first civilians to be killed on the Scottish mainland and the only WWII deaths by bombing in West Lothian.

Craigsfarm in the Archives

This week I thought I would look at the records we hold relating to Craigsfarm, which is a community centre that has been integral to the development of Livingston’s community since 1967.



Craigsfarm was in a state of

dilapidation before renovations took place

 

The renovations used a lot of volunteer support



A little history – when construction began on Livingston in the 1960s, Craigshill was the first area of the town to be built. Livingston Development Corporation Policy at the time was to demolish older buildings that were in the way of their housing developments. Craigsfarm was scheduled for demolition once Craigshill had been completed, but a campaign in the then fledgling community of Livingston, led by Med Cruickshank, who was a church of Scotland Youth Worker, saved the building from demolition. The Church of Scotland agreed to take on a full repairing lease and to contribute to the costs of renovation, whilst the Corporation agreed to make the building water tight. The agreements changed over time, but for the next twenty years renovation work took place, turning Craigsfarm and its outbuildings in to a community centre.



By 1993 £250,000 had been spent on renovation costs by the LDC and the Manpower Services Commission, whilst Lothian Regional Council provided revenue grants to provide staffing costs. John Hoey was, for many years, the manager of the community centre.



Over the years Craigsfarm has hosted many initiatives for the betterment of the community around . These include a community laundrette, a nearly new shop, a catering service a rock school for teenagers, film and television workshops, all of which helped the long term unemployed or were aimed at disadvantaged kids. This is in addition to rooms in the building that were available to community groups and “Newsflash”, a newsletter aimed at local residents and run by volunteers.

We have a lot of records about Craigsfarm in the archives. The Reverend Dr Maitland was in Livingston from 1966, and he was there as the campaign to save Craigsfarm from demolition was launched; his papers include correspondence with the Church of Scotland when the building was bought and initially refurbished. It was a not straightforward process, with various building firms and chartered surveyors offering bleak views on the chances of success, one firm, from Glasgow wrote:

“These are very old buildings, and in our opinion near the end of their working life. We do not think they justify the expenditure on modernisation.... we would that say in our experience, the reconstruction and modernisation of structurally poor buildings is never satisfactory.”  (Letter is found in WL26/1/1/4/1)

The Church of Scotland Home Board also had its doubts. However, local campaigners persevered and the renovation went ahead.

Craigsfarm went on to be a lynchpin of Craigshill's community

There are many, many files, mainly technical (architects papers, engineering contracts etc) in the Livingston Development Corporation’s records about work done on the building of Craigsfarm showing how the building was redeveloped; there are also minutes of meetings of the Board of the Corporation which explain why they invested money into the community centre. The Corporation minutes, record, for example, that even after the Church of Scotland had taken on the lease, the Corporation was still suggesting that the building should be demolished:

“the general manager reported a meeting he had had recently with the Rev Hamish Smith, Appeals Secretary of the Craigshill Community Development Project... he [the General manager] had suggested that the building should be demolished and that the Corporation consider erecting in its place a building suitable for community purposes. The Board delayed consideration, pending hearing from the Project Committee.”  (Minutes of the Livingston Development Corporation Board, 178/d, 1967)

Newsflash kept the community informed
- through volunteer labour, for nearly 20 years

The main collection that we hold is, of course, that of Craigsfarm itself (WL20). I am currently cataloguing this collection and have got as far as a rough list, which means I don’t have any specific examples, but the papers of the collection include minutes of meetings from the Craigsfarm management committee, reports of the Annual General Meetings, copies of the newsletter Newsflash, financial information about funding from government bodies and the yearly accounts, copies of advertisements, information about the rock school, about the catering business, about the Craigshill Initiative (which aimed to help long termed unemployed with work) about the Community Forum which sprang up in 1996 to give a voice for residents in Livingston (especially against the proposed waste incinerator at St John’s hospital) – the archive captures a wide variety the activities of Craigsfarm over the decades, showing us how it was at the centre of the community of Craigshill. In a few hundred years when Livingston is no longer young but old, the Craigsfarm archive will remain an important resource for anyone looking at how the community in Livingston formed, about what the people of Livingston found important at the time; about what the everyday community cared about in day to day life and how they fought for it.

Good neighbours abound.

When our Assistant Housing Visitor talks of good neighbours abounding, they are not exaggerating. One of the striking things about the relatively short history of Livingston is the level of community engagement and action. Many of the first residents –  “the pioneers” - moving to Livingston from around Scotland from 1964 onwards, moved to a building site, a place of “dust in the summer and mud in the winter”. It was a town that had no established community; no established, groups or societies; no cafes, cinemas, parks, or sports fields. Yet by 1973 there were over 230 community organisations, one for every 100 residents in the town. Community spirit in Livingston had flourished.



A Department of Agriculture testing station until 1962, Howden House
was renovated in 1964 using a £64,000 donation from
the Carnegie UK Trust. It became Livingston's first community centre,
as well as the location for the board meetings of the Livingston
Development Corporation.



The growing of this community is reflected in the archives in a variety of ways. The first direct community action in Livingston was to save Craigsfarm, a 19th century farm and steading that  was located scheduled for demolition during the creation of the first residential district in Livingston, Craigshill. In 1966 the farm was saved by community action, led by Church of Scotland Youth Worker Max Cruickshank. The Church of Scotland bought the farm, renovated it, and then donated it to the community at a nominal fee. In the archives we hold the papers of the Reverend Dr James Maitland, first Church of Scotland Minister in the Livingston Ecumenical Experiment (which deserves its own blog post!). Maitland's papers contain correspondence regarding the  Church of Scotland’s decision to purchase and renovate the building (catalogued in the archive using the reference number WL26/1/14).

We also hold papers donated by Craigsfarm itself, which detail many of the activities that the community centre went on to perform and its vital place in the community – at various times it was to host a “rock school”, a community launderette to help the long term unemployed find work, a furniture restoration workshop, a cafe,  and of course many community rooms. As of 2013 Craigsfarm is still a functioning community centre.

James Maitland himself was a pillar of the community. His papers  include notes and draft chapters for his book “New Beginnings: Breaking Through to Unity”, published posthumously in 1997. These notes contain anecdotal stories of the early community spirit in Livingston where there was a sense of camaraderie that is perhaps lacking in many modern towns and cities. This community spirit led to the founding of a town Forum. The Forum was a voice for the early residents, a way to represent their views to the Corporation on how the town should be developed and what services were needed. Some of its news sheets “News Flash”, informing resident about what was going on in the area, still survive in the Craigsfarm collection. As attendance started to drop at the Forum in early 1970s it was decided to formalise the group and it morphed in to Scotland’s first community council – pre-empting the creation of community councils as the most local form of government in Scotland by two years.

As well as community spirit, there were many formal groups and clubs that grew up in Livingston. The Livingston Development Corporation contributed to start-up costs of many groups. The papers we hold on the “Minor Amenity Fund” reveal what clubs were given money. In February 1982 Lanthorn Junior Club Youth Club received £160 because “Activities that occupy young people should be supported” (LDC/PS/3/1/7/2) whilst a similar reason was given for the donation of £100 in 1981 to Nether Dechmont Outdoor Leisure Club which was “meeting the need of boisterous youth for adventure. Has great potential”.

Given the dearth of entertainment in the new town in the early years, in 1973 the Corporation set up the Livingston Sponsorship Committee whose remit was to attract professional acts to perform in the newly created Howden Parks Art Centre. This group ran for 8 years. From April 1980 to April 1981 the committee organised a folk talent contest, a piano recital, a performance  by Purves Puppets, a German Flute, Lyre and Drum Band, performances by Synthaxis Theatre Co of Hollywood, performances by the Pitlochry Festival Theatre Touring Company, performances by McAlmans, Boys of the Lough, the Scottish Ballet, and, to top it all off, a brass band contest.  

Noel Grimshaw of Livingston Development Corporation's Community Development Department. The Department helped many community groups to get up and running for over twenty years (behind him it is Howden House, again, Livingston's favourite photographic location...)



Not all community activity was spurred by the Corporation though. One of the major successes of Livingston in the 1970s and 1980s was the Livingston Festival, organised by the Livingston Festival Association which was made up of community volunteers. For a time this was the largest festival held in Scotland.



Livingston Festival Artwork, 1985

Many of those 230 community groups in Livingston were run by the hard work of volunteers with little or no money and with little or no resources. The vast array of voluntary groups required some organisation, and the sharing of expertise and sometimes limited resources to which end a Voluntary Organisations Council (VOC) was started in 1973. The Development Corporation collection contains many minutes of meetings and  correspondence with the VOC and, given their collaborative nature, their records provide a valuable insight into the nature, number and scope of voluntary organisations in Livingston during the 1970s and 1980s (LDC/PS/3/3/37/1-17.)



Just some of the community groups active in Livingston in 1973



These are just a few of the records we hold on the community and its spirit and activities in the archive – but they give a flavour of just how strong and active Livingston's community  was in its early years,  a legacy that is still felt today!