REDGRAVE ACTION GROUP
the campaigning arm of the New Farnham Repertory Company
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Farnham is a small market town, near Guildford in the county of Surrey.
Farnham
was for 600
years the home of the Bishops of Winchester as it was one
day’s ride from both Winchester and London. Nowadays, the
journey to London takes only an hour.
Farnham’s beautiful architectural character, mainly Georgian with many enticing coaching yards, has for a long time made it a much sought-after location, both for visiting and inhabiting. Farnham has a fine Norman-cum-Tudor castle, buildings by Edwin Lutyens (principal architect of New Delhi) and a beautiful parish church with the largest tower in Surrey.
The
town has a strong cultural heritage that includes William Cobbett (left), author
of Rural Rides and founder of the Hansard record of Parliamentary
debates, George
Sturt, Alfred Lord Tennyson and JM Barrie (Peter Pan). Amongst more recent famous sons of
Farnham one can count rugby's Jonny Wilkinson (right), Mike Hawthorne
(Britain's first world motor racing champion), and international cricket's
Graham Thorpe.
Farnham’s hops were amongst the most prized in the south of England in the 19th century, and these were dried and processed in the town’s maltings, a premises which a century later was developed into an arts centre, the Farnham Maltings.
The arts have always
been strongly supported and represented in the town.
In
the 1990s the Farnham Youth Choir was twice winner of the Sainsbury’s national
Choir of the Year competition. The Surrey Institute of Art and Design is
the south of England’s foremost academic centre for higher education in the
visual arts.
There are around 50 amateur drama clubs, choirs and music ensembles, an operatic society and, in the nearby village of Tilford, an annual Bach festival. Farnham’s own annual music festival has for forty years produced an aural feast of the highest quality.
The jewel in Farnham’s cultural crown was, for over fifty years, its professional repertory theatre, as seen at the Castle Theatre and, later, at the Redgrave Theatre.
In 1939 the Castle Theatre, housed in a 16th century barn in Castle Street (right) opened for business. It performed plays almost continuously until the construction of a superb new building in 1974. This was the Redgrave Theatre which, together with Brightwell House (above), the Graded II listed building which it adjoined, provided a uniquely fine premises. (For more on this history click here...)
or clink one of the links below to move into the main part of the website.
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The story of the Redgrave Theatre from its beginnings as the Castle Theatre to its closure in 1998. |
Ian Mullins, first director of the Redgrave Theatre appeals for your support. |
How the New Farnham Repertory Company plans to run a re-opened Redgrave Theatre |
The shocking story of how a thriving theatre was run down, closed and allowed to rot. Click here for the story of Waverley Council. |
