Promise fulfilled as hall is handed over
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WICK'S Rifle Drill Hall has been handed over to Highland Council following a promise made in a trust deed 128 years ago.
One of the hall trustees, Gus Mackay, of Thurso, explained that once the Army gave up the use of the hall it triggered the old condition of the deed.
The Reserve Forces Association had kept up the lease of the Army Reserve Centre in Dempster Street up until last year, with the ownership of the building technically belonging to three trustees.
"We then set the ball in motion to hand it over to the council," Mr Mackay said.
"It was a sad time for us. We have no means of income – the little bit of money was all we had to pay the electricity and so forth."
He went on to say that the hall was perfectly usable and had been freshly painted at the time the Army left.
Asked if he knew what the future plans for the hall was, Mr Mackay said one or two people had looked at it for a possible use. However, he felt the council would put the property on the market.
The old TA hall was handed over on Tuesday, October 2, to Highland Council as the representative of the people of Wick and Pulteneytown – a fulfilment of the trust deed.
After the building of the hall was completed in 1890, Major Robert Robertson, a grandfather of the present Lord-Lieutenant, in his grand opening bazaar speech said: "When volunteering ceased, which it would do in the era of peace, when all danger would have passed away, the hall would belong to Wick and Pulteneytown."
He continued: "There was not a word of truth in the report that was current, that the hall had been built by the volunteer officers as a private speculation for the good of their own pockets. The officers had no personal object in view whatever, and the legal document handing over the hall to the town in the event of the volunteers being disbanded would be open to the inspection of anyone who wished to see it."
In the early 1950s the Wick Town Council, under the provostship of Bessie Leith, felt the hall should have been restored then, and took matters as far as the Court of Session. When they lost that action, they decided to move forward with the conversion of the Pulteneytown Academy into the Assembly Rooms.
Mr Mackay said: "Although not the gift it once was, the promise has been finally kept. Despite the request of the hall trustees and the efforts of local councillors, it was not possible to ring-fence any possible proceeds from the hall to the local area."
Highland Council was contacted to comment on the handover and to see what plans it had for the hall. A response was not received by the time the Groat went to press.
