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New life for workers’ hall

Marsden Community Trust takes over Yorkshire club

A HISTORIC workers' club in Yorkshire has been saved with the establishment of a new co-operative venture.

Marsden Community Trust was inaugurated this week to take over ownership of Marsden Mechanics Hall.

Marsden is a small town in the heart of the Pennines, near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire. The hall was opened in 1861, established by local radicals as an educational institute for millworkers. For a century it was used as a venue for lectures, meetings, concerts and dances.

In the 1990s it was threatened with demolition but was saved by a community campaign and is a grade-II listed building.

Tom Lonsdale, who was involved in the campaign, said: "The creation of the new trust is an historic moment. The new trust is the mechanism that allows us to repossess the hall and bring it back home to where it originated, the community of Marsden."

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