ONE man’s memories of the Sidney Hall in Weymouth make for fascinating reading.

Bob Russell of Crossways was connected to the hall for more than 40 years and has very kindly shared his memories of the well-loved Weymouth building, where Weymouth Asda now stands, which had multiple uses over the years as a dance hall, roller rink, school and even a military hospital.

But there have been even more uses of the hall, as Bob explains, that we haven’t even mentioned yet!

Here’s Bob’s timeline of what the Sidney Hall meant to him over the years.

In 1949/50 – Bob attended Holy Trinity School in Commercial Road, Weymouth.

He said: “Every day we had to walk over Westham Bridge along Westwey Road to the Sidney Hall for our school dinner, whatever the weather.”

In the mid 1950s – the League of Friends used to host a big fundraising day and Bob’s mother was voted Weymouth’s Glam-orous Grandmother.

1959-1962 – Roller skating nights were held six nights of the week by Mr and Mrs Lloydsworth and their daughter Babs.

Bob said: “I taught non skaters and also controlled rink behaviour which usually entailed skating backwards for approximately three hours a night.”

1970 – Bob said the Sidney Hall was then a ‘very busy bingo hall’ where a team of Rothmans cigarettes sales girls would do promotions on occasional bingo nights.

Bob organised the team of sales girls and also spent time in the small Sidney Hall on Saturday night for dances.

Between 1974 and 1988 – Bob became commercial manager of Weymouth Football Club and the Sidney Hall was bought from the council.

He said: “During this period I leased the hall to the government Land Registry for storing of Dorset land records.

“When this ended I rented the halls out as 10 classrooms for foreign students throughout the summer language school season.

“The surrounds were used as a car park, giving extra revenue to the club.”

In the mid 1980s, Bob was approached by Carter Commercial developments, who were looking for a supermarket site.

He said: “The board of directors which I was now a director of entered into an agreement to demolish the Sidney Hall and football ground and move to the present Wessex Stadium, allowing Gateway (now Asda) to be built on the site.

“I retained a lottery office on the site until the 1990s.”

Indeed, there is one little bit of Weymouth where the Sidney Hall – at least in part – still remains today.

Bob said: “My previous home in Grosvenor Road required roofing and the slates on the Sidney Hall were of such good quality that I purchased half of them from the demolition company and they are still in use today!”