00:00Hello, I'm Philip Ryden. I'm the editor of the Victoria County History in Derbyshire
00:05and I have a long-standing interest in the history of Chesterfield, my hometown.
00:09I've been asked to say something about some of the more interesting buildings in the town.
00:12The Stevenson Memorial Hall was built in 1879 by the Chesterfield and North Derbyshire
00:19Institute of Engineers. It was a very ambitious building. It proved too expensive for a fairly
00:25small engineering institute and about 10 years later it was taken over by the Chesterfield
00:31Corporation. They adapted it in 1904 into a cinema and a central library. The cinema evolved in turn
00:40into the Civic Theatre after the Second World War and what is now the Pomegranate and the library
00:45stayed here until the 1980s when the County Council built a new library on the marketplace. It's now
00:52being refurbished again to provide better accommodation for the museum which moved into
00:57the building after the library left and to provide a more modern and more sophisticated theatre.
01:03That's in nearing completion and will be open in a couple of years as a much improved theatre
01:08and a revamped museum.
01:22So
01:23You
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