WORK on the rebuilding of Easham Memorial Hall started on Monday.

The 1922 Boulton and Paul building will be demolished during the first few days of August and replaced with a new building bringing to an end nearly 100 years of service to the village community.

This is possible through a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund of £260,000.

A number of people have invested much time, effort and finance over the last few years to gain this grant.

The list is very long, and includes especially Rachel Arnold who died before being able to see the project completed.

Contractors moved onto the site on Monday and the project is scheduled to take 16 weeks with completion at the end of November.

The New Hall project will be undertaken by Iris Construction Projects Ltd who are a local firm of long standing.

It will be led by managing director Peter Hogan. Chris Ham, of Amber Projects, will be overseeing the project on behalf of the Eastham Memorial Hall Trustees with the local community providing certificates throughout each stage of the building project in line with the requirements of The National Lottery.

Due to the guidelines set out by Government it will not be possible for anyone who is unauthorised to enter the Memorial Hall site once work gets underway.

The plan is to bury a time capsule to show people in the future what the village and its community hall was like in 2020.

It will be buried within the foundations so is unlikely to be recovered until a new hall is needed. People can suggest ideas of things to be included in the time capsule.

Because the existing building is almost 100 years old it was decided that the time had come to replace it with something more modern and energy efficient.

Working hours will be Monday to Friday 7.30am to 5pm and Saturday 7.30am to 4pm. It is envisaged there will be no work on Sundays.

Progress can be followed on the website www.easthammemorialhall.org.uk , Teme Eastham Facebook page and regular updates will be sent by email, through the Parish clerk to Eastham Parish Council, Sue Burrows. She can be contacted by email at: easthampc08@btinternet.com.

There will be updates as the project progresses through Temetalk or catch any of the team by the Hall any Saturday morning at 10 am which is where the committee leading the project will be around to answer any questions.