A SOUTH Tyne community is racing around to preserve a historic building which has served parishioners since 1850.

Featherstone Village Hall was originally a school and a church, before closing and taking on its current multi-functional role in 1960.

But now £20,000 must be spent on refurbishing the building’s decaying roof after years of “patch up” repairs.

Village hall secretary Judith Humphries said: “It’s a great hall which is very popular with the whole community, and it’s used for all sorts of things.

“We’ve always patched up the roof where necessary, but we’ve decided that it needs a full scale refurbishment, so we don’t have to worry about what might happen when it rains.”

Fund-raising is already well under way. Charitable donations of £2,000 and £3,000 have been made by the Joicey Trust and the Sir James Knott Trust, respectively, while Featherstone Parish Council has added £750 to the total.

County councillor for Haltwhistle, Coun. Ian Hutchinson, has donated £3,000 from his council member’s allowance and local businesses, including Kilfrost, and AGMA Chemicals, have also made contributions.

Last Saturday, the village hall hosted a race night, which involved the use of mechanically-propelled wooden race horses, hand-made by resident Tom Smith.

The race night was well supported, raising a further £800 towards the roof fund, and Judith was delighted with the turnout.

She said: “Everyone thoroughly enjoyed having a go at racing the horses and placing bets on them. Now that we’ve got them, they will be available for hire, which will be another useful source of income for the hall.”

The village hall has also applied to Northumberland County Council’s community chest fund which, if successful, will add a further £4,000 to the fund-raising total.

The village hall is used for meetings of Featherstone Parish Council, the Haltwhistle and District Burial Board, and as a polling station. It also hosts young farmers’ meetings, domino drives, and quiz nights. It caters for about 330 people across a sparse rural area.