Ardrossan Labour Party Hall

[Hughie]

I remember going to a teenage party back in the 1950s in the Ardrossan Labour Party Hall. I've been try to recall where that was. My best guess is that it was at the back of the Co-op shops in Glasgow Street - just down from what was the Post Office.

I believe I could I have attended a dockers Christmas party there too when I was even younger, and dad worked on the docks?

[Penny Tray]

Hughie,

Mitchy and Meekan had a discussion at one time during which they also placed the Labour Party Hall somewhere behind the Post Office in Glasgow Street. And, I'm not sure how I qualified to be there but I once attended a Dockers' Christmas Party which was held in the Masonic Hall at the corner of Princes Street/Harbour Street.

[meekan]

The labour party Hall was through a close just up from the post office. It sat into the rock on some form of stilts and you entered it by steps which I think were wooden??? As you went up the stairs on your right was a house also on the rock, I believe though I’m not certain Provost Currie (before he was a councillor) stayed there and his wife was the hall caretaker.

[Hughie]

Thanks, Penny and Angus. I wasn't far out, just the wrong side of the post office. Perhaps the Dockers Christmas party as you say, Penny was at the Masonic building in Princess Street - I was really wee then.

[stivis]

Was the entrance not where the newer brickwork is here between the Cunninghame Housing and the old Post Office, which lead you through to Hill Place or Street where Lucas and Steen were


https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6417689 ... 312!8i6656

[meekan]

No that opening took you through to the stables and the back door of the post office where the postmen and telegraph boys were.
The entrance to the Labour hall was through a close either the first or second one up from the post office

[stivis]

This is the first of the closes 2 more further up ,because there is no door facade that tend to signify a passage way


https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6420759 ... 312!8i6656

[Penny Tray]

I agree with Meekan and think the third door along is, or was, an open common close, through which the building in question was accessed. It was definitely a wooden building on stilts and when I was in it in the early 1970s it was occupied, I think, by one of the local Di Carlo boys and his wife.

[meekan]

Stivis,
I think PT is right I think it was the third entry up from the post office, in the days we are talking about, before the buildings were refurbished, there wasn't a door it was an open close. If you went through the close straight in front of you was a rock face. Slightly to the right was the labour hall and as we said before it was on stilts into the rock.

[stivis]

the back of the four houses up from the PO,
Anyone suggest a location? There's not a lot of room

https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6419309 ... a=!3m1!1e3

[George Ardrossan]

Is this 1959 photo of an A1 bus stopped outside the old Post Office in Glasgow Street of any use in explaining the location of the Hall?


George

[Penny Tray]

I think it confirms that what is currently the third door along from the post office was formerly an open close which gave access to the rear of the buildings where the hall was situated.