Heritage group wins backing for bomb site memorial idea

A CIVIC heritage group has welcomed public backing for its campaign to preserve one of Hull’s most historically important buildings.

More than 700 people have signed a petition in support of plans to protect and restore the National Picture Theatre and Swan Inn public house in Beverley Road.

The theatre is believed to be the last surviving bomb-damaged civilian building in England, while the adjoining hostelry, which is about 111 years old, is the last remaining bow-fronted pub in East Yorkshire.

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The theatre has lain untouched since it was attacked by the Luftwaffe at about 10pm on March 17, 1941, and the National Civilian Second World War Memorial Trust is seeking planning permission for a project that would see it form the centrepiece of a “Home Front” memorial to the 1,200 civilians in Hull who died as a result of Nazi air raids, and to the wartime members of the emergency services.

However, the building’s owners have submitted a separate application to transform the site into a restaurant and flats.

Both applications will go before the city council’s planning committee on Wednesday, September 7.

Trust secretary Alan Canvess said he was delighted by the response to the petition, which was launched by Stella Barnes, wife of Neal Barnes, the vicar of Hull’s Holy Trinity Church, where a memorial service was held in May to mark the 70th anniversary of the two most lethal raids, known locally as the Hull Blitz.

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Mr Canvess said 30 letters backing it have also been sent to the council, and he believed there was now a groundswell of public support for the scheme.

He said: “We are very grateful she has taken the time to do it. We feel it shows people are really behind our plans and against the plans to turn it into a restaurant and flats.”

Under the plans the theatre’s handsome brick frontage would be conserved, as would the empty shell and plaques with the names of the dead would be hung on the walls.

The inn would be converted back to its wartime layout and would house a micro-brewery. The development, which would also include a stand-alone education building, would cost a minimum of £750,000.

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The trust would also need about £230,000 to buy the site from the owner, and has launched a fundraising campaign to do so.

The theatre, which was given a Grade II listing in 2007, has been described as of “iconic importance” and “one of the most powerful reminders of one of the most formative periods of the 20th century”.

Mrs Barnes presented the petition which seeks to preserve that heritage to the council yesterday.

She said: “One of the things I think is quite important is that there doesn’t seem to be anything in Hull where the individual civilians are named; other cities I’ve come across all have individual names on a memorial.

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“That specific location seems appropriate as it’s one of the few undeveloped bomb sites in the country. It would make it a poignant location.

“And to try and turn it into an educational resource is very important because it’s only by learning the mistakes of the past that each generation can hope to move forward. So many young people when they think about how it (the war) affected people they only think of servicemen and women; they don’t think about people on the Home Front and people caught up in it, and this is who the people in the forces were fighting for.”

In a cruel irony, the building was attacked while it was showing Charlie Chaplin’s satire The Great Dictator. Unable to get to shelters because of the severity of the raid, 150 people crammed into the foyer and remarkably all survived when an airborne mine landed at the rear of premises, destroying the screen and gutting the building.

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