This week the Waverley Web was inundated with views and comments on an article by a well-known and respected Architect who has drawn attention to the deplorable state of Brightwells House. The Grade 2 listed building once rubbed shoulders with the never to be forgotten Redgrave Theatre.
Has one of Farnham’s iconic buildings been trashed?
The now demolished Redgrave Theatre. Why can’t a new live theatre be included in the Brightwells Yard development now retailers have turned their backs on the units?
Above is a scan of an article from the Surrey and Hants News of 16.11.2006, which gives an account of an event to save the Redgrave. Please note the name of the young lad in the picture was Isaac Sturt – not Hunt!
Campaigners took a picture of Jeremy Hunt when he was the parliamentary candidate for SW Surrey in 2006. He had carried out a local survey of residents on the electoral role of the future of the Redgrave Theatre. He revealed that more Conservative voters than Liberal Democrats wanted the Redgrave saved. Of course, by the time he was elected as MP and Waverley had become a Tory Borough, he had changed his position but always blamed Waverley Council for being intransigent – well, that was his story, and he’s sticking to it.
Thank you, Waverley Web for these reminders of better days at Brightwells.
It would be great if some of these good elements could be brought into its future and its past commemorated correctly. We are being misled by the marketing people.
The house is named Brightwell House and its land is called Brightwells (obviously once spelled Brightwell’s). Brightwells Yard is an invention of the developer, along with its fictitious postal address of the house as The Old Market Place.