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The Grade I Listed Town Hall occupies a prominent place in Berwick at the lower end of Marygate. The 153 feet tall spire is the main feature an the skyline of Berwick. The Council Chambers are nestled in the east end of the Town Hall.
Thank you to The Freemen of Berwick-upon-Tweed for allowing us the use of their spaces for exhibition venues.
Berwick Town Hall is a large historical stone building with a clock tower and a cafe. The Town Hall serves as a civic meeting place, wedding and event venue, and consists of three floor levels. This venue is not step-free and has two stair-climbers. This venue has an adapted toilet.
Guide dogs are welcomed. Volunteers & Venue Staff will be present throughout opening hours.
There are two entrances into the venue. The side entrance is on the ground floor on a pedestrianised street. The front entrance is on the first floor up a large set of stone steps. This entrance is also pedestrianised outside. The pedestrianised flooring outside is large square paving stones with some small sections of cobblestones.
The side entrance is for those arriving by foot and ambulatory mobility aid users. The entrance is through non-automated double doors which will be held open. There are two shallow stone steps into the building with no ramp and no handrail. The venue is on the first floor up 22 steps with a landing halfway and handrails both sides. There is no lift, there are two stair-climbers.
If you are a wheelchair or mobility scooter user and need support to get up the stairs, you will need to ring the intercom bell on the right of the side entrance double doors. Ambulatory mobility aid users that cannot walk up the steps and can transfer from their chair or scooter, will need to use the stair-climber with the support of Town Hall staff to get up the side entrance stairs. The maximum weight for this stair-climber is 130kg.
If you are a wheelchair user that needs to stay in your chair you will need to use the intercom bell at the side entrance to contact the Town Hall staff and then go around to the front of the building to the front entrance. They will meet you there with a stair-climber for non-ambulatory wheelchair users which can be used to get up the 17 steps to the front entrance door with the support of Town Hall staff. The maximum weight for this stair-climber is 200kg.
If you accessed the venue through the side entrance, the stairs will take you to a corridor landing on the first floor, you need to take a left and then through the first door on the right. All of the single internal doorways are 81cm wide. The doors are not automated but are held open. The doorway will take you to a central room with a blue carpet floor, the venue room is on the left up two shallow carpeted stairs with no ramp.
If you accessed the building through the front entrance, you will be led through a large hall with a wooden floor to the venue room.
There is nowhere to store or park wheelchairs or mobility scooters at the venue.
Room Description: A medium sized meeting room with front facing rows of armchairs facing one projection screen.
Doorways: Doors are not automated but are held open. The width of the venue room doorway is 125cm. The internal single doorways into hallways and toilets are all 81cm wide.
Steps: This venue has a lot of steps and no ramp in use. For the two large sets of steps at the entrances there are two stair-climbers, an ambulatory and non-ambulatory option. For the two shallow steps at the side entrance and the two shallow carpeted steps into the screening room there is no ramp, venue staff have suggested supporting wheelchair users over these steps if required.
Seating: There are two types of seating in the room; Padded arm chairs with padded backs and hard wooden arms and a bench along the back of the room with a padded seat and a hard wooden back. Armchairs are removable and space will be made for wheelchair users.
Toilets: The toilets are gendered. The gendered ‘Women’s’ toilet is on the first floor landing at the top of the stairs. The gendered ‘Mens’ toilet is on the ground floor landing at the bottom of the stairs. It is down 3 stairs with no ramp. The doors are not automated. The accessible toilet is also the gendered ‘Women’s’ toilet on the first floor landing at the top of the stairs. It has grab bars and a lowered sink. It has no emergency pull cord. The measurements of the toilet are room width 105cm, at the narrowest point from sink to wall 86cm.
Flooring: The side entrance porch on the ground floor has brown carpet. The front entrance porch on the first floor has square flagstones that are slightly uneven. The inside stairs are carpeted with stair nosings. The carpet is brown with black and silver nosings which provide some contrast. The landings have bright red carpet. The central room on the first floor has blue carpet. The screening room has bright red carpet. The large hall has a light brown varnished wood flooring. The toilets have grey square lino tiles with white speckles. All apart from the flagstones are smooth, flat and even.
Temperature: Entrances and stairways are cool, the rooms are slightly warmer.
Lighting: Warm lighting, chandelier style ceiling lights in rooms and warm uplit lamps in stairway, natural lighting from windows. There is a fluorescent light above the front entrance door inside the porch. There is fluorescent and natural lighting from the window in the toilets.
Patterns: Mostly muted colours with some reds and blues. No noticeable high contrast geometric patterns. All rooms on the first floor have patterned wallpaper in a neutral colour scheme.
Smell: Old building smell, no noticeable strong odours.
There is a cafe through a separate entrance on the ground floor called The Town Hall Cafe open Mon-Sat 10am-2.30pm, closed Sunday. They offer hot and cold drinks, snacks, cakes and meals. The Town hall is also on the high street and is surrounded by other cafe and restaurant options.
Emergency exits are marked and staff will assist you to the nearest exit which is through the entrance room, hall and front entrance or down the stairs to the side entrance. There is one Evac chair and a trained member of staff will be present.
16 Marygate, Berwick-upon-Tweed TD15 1BN
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Belgian filmmaker and cinematographer Fairuz Ghammam’s warm, generous work explores aspects of (auto)biography, shared authorship, and collaborative practices.
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Ben Rivers’ magnificent film of a sloth doesn’t encourage lazy viewing. Rather, it’s an active, engaging and engrossing experience. Time becomes suspended as each breath, every movement becomes a theatrical drama unfolding before our eyes. Perhaps implicitly poking fun at the term ‘slow cinema’, Rivers instead gives us an exquisite example of ‘sloth cinema’.
How Does an Invisible Boy Disappear? emerges from a nine-month collaboration with Liverpool Black Women Filmmakers, a new women’s film collective made up of young women from a Somali & Pakistani background. The film documents the group as they work together to create a thriller focusing on a teenage girl’s attempt to find a missing local boy. Comprised of candid footage captured during the workshop process, behind the scenes filming and archive footage of anti-racist organising in the aftermath of the Toxteth race riots, the film questions how modes of representation and societal structures are gendered and racialised.
Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and supported by Tenderpixel, London
