Winstonville Hall once Welland’s go-to hotspot for teens
Constructed during Canada’s wartime housing initiative, hall served as a dance hall and community centre
Although there’s little external change evident, it’s difficult to tell the building standing at 37 Wavell Ct., almost in the middle of Winstonville Park, was once a popular teen dance hall.
This building is part of a neighbourhood that emerged during the Second World War. Due to increased demand for staff at the city’s steel and textile companies, a great number of workers came to Welland to supplement the workforce during the war, many coming from surrounding farms, or returning to Welland after leaving during the Great Depression.
As the number of workers nearly doubled by 1941 compared to prewar years, the influx caused a severe lack of housing.
In October 1940, a program to relieve the national housing problem was announced by the federal government, with the intent of providing temporary accommodation in communities affected by wartime production demands.
By April 1941, Wartime Housing Ltd., a Crown corporation, was established.
Over the next several years, neighbourhoods of wartime housing blocks sprang up south of Lincoln Street. In June 1942, the City of Welland annexed 36.4 hectares from Crowland Township, west of Southworth Street, between Lincoln Street and the Michigan Central Railroad right-of-way, with 300 homes slated for construction there by Russell Construction Co. One of the buildings to be built in that area would become Winstonville Hall.
Constructed in about 1943 on the east side of Wavell Court, surrounded by Winstonville Park, the hall adopted the informal name of the newly-built neighbourhood, colloquially named after wartime British prime minister Winston Churchill. It was initially opened by Welland’s then-mayor T. H. Lewis as the area’s first community centre and township hall.
Local teenagers quickly co-opted it into serving as their dance space, and from 1944 to 1966 Winstonville Hall became known for hosting teen dances and clubs, with reunions taking place through the 1970s. In addition to its role as a community meeting space and dance hall, it served as the home and office of the Welland recreation department.
The hall continued to function in this capacity until about 1989, when it was left vacant. Shortly thereafter, the building was leased by the city to Welland Little Theatre Players. The group used it for rehearsals and storage purposes.
But the hall was becoming dilapidated, and in 1993 was deemed unfit by city council.
As a solution, a four-way partnership was proposed among the city, Welland Little Theatre group, Niagara South Board of Education and Niagara Peninsula Industrial Education Council and Human Resources Development Canada to rebuild the hall. Welland Little Theatre was to finance costs of building materials in exchange for a long-term lease.
Unemployed trainees from Westbrook Secondary School were to provide labour while receiving boosted government unemployment benefits and hands-on training in construction, carpentry and trades, as part of Westbrook’s construction technology program.
The proposal received a green light, and by 1995, the old hall was demolished and replaced by a 280square-metre raised bungalow that would serve as the rehearsal, administrative and storage centre for the theatre group.
The resurrected hall lasted under the theatre group until 1999/2000, when it was again vacated, and in 2002 it became Centre Clinique Docteur Renaud.
In 2007 the former community hall that had helped many wartime and post-war era youth have a good time and gave members of a local community theatre group an opportunity to hone their craft became a residential home, leaving behind its exterior as a reminder of its past.