Welcome -

Our village hall, situated just north of Chester, has been around since it was formally opened by Viscount Leverhulme in 1950. Built on donated land and located centrally within our five villages of Mollington, Lea-by-Backford, Backford, Chorlton and Caughall it is the social hub for the local community and beyond.

At the time of the building opening, given the materials available in that post-war period, the useful life of the hall was estimated to be 15 years. Dedicated committees and many volunteers since then have kept it functioning adding rooms from time to time to meet increasing and diverse demand. It continues to thrive thanks to the continual support of the community, volunteers and users both in and outside our villages.

The hall is located just off the A41 at Backford Cross on Station Road – CH1 6NT.

Hire the Hall -

Our hall has been hired in the past for just about anything from weddings, sports activities, learning groups, band practise, discrete business meetings, theatre groups, family get-togethers, concerts and so on.  See here for rates or click here to email the booking secretary for help or a viewing.

In the current circumstances whilst the hall has re-opened, there are restrictions on how the hall may be used for instance in terms of numbers of people attending, use of facilities, cleansing before and after use and such like. Current guidelines can be seen here.  There is a plan here available showing the effect of current 6’/2m distances on where and how many people can use the spaces available.

We can provide current guidelines advice on use of village halls so please do contact us with any queries relating to a potential booking via this website.

We can offer the following spaces: a main hall 17 x13.5m (with a stage); a committee room 8.5 x 4m with sink and tea/coffee making facilities; a Garden Room 9 x 5m overlooking the rear wooded area; the kitchen is fitted with a gas and electric range cooker, standard electric oven, fridge and freezer, microwave as well as crockery & cutlery. The bar room separates the kitchen from the Garden Room. See hall layout here.  There is ample parking outside.

The Five Villages Community Hub Project

After over sixty five years of continual use by the community – and maintenance - our old hall is showing its age which led the committee in late 2016 to embark on a project programme to replace it with a new community hub. This project has the working title of “The Five Villages Meeting Hub”.

A small Project Team was set up to steer the programme on behalf of the committee and community. It first convened in October 2016 and has done (almost) weekly since. 

Despite a few funding application disappointments in the past, the team concluded that it would need to apply to the then Big Lottery Fund( now known as The National Lottery Building Community Fund - TNL for short) for major financial support. The concept was that with TNL funding support, we could use this support to lever funding support from other funders. Initial meetings with the Lottery helped us understand their process to ensure funding and thus project success.

The community – both villager users and hall hirers - were asked for their views on a new building in 2017; what they wanted to do in it, what it should offer, which new activities were wished for, people’s views on the community and current facilities.  The replies to the questionnaires helped steer the project to a basic building design, an understanding of the need for the project and ultimately the project drivers and proposed outcomes.

After a three-stage application process the BLF granted us funding of £492k. Other main funders followed including Sport England, The Ursula Keyes Trust, Garfield Weston, The Williams Family Foundation,  LEADER, Cheshire Community Foundation, The King’s Fund, The Leverhulme Trust, Allchurches Trust and recently in June 2020 the FCC Communities Foundation. 

Many local private, generous donations have been made to the building fund whilst the hall social committee and hall class providers & users have staged many fundraising events to help the fund along. Our three local parish councils and local residents are also supporting the project via their precepts to fund a loan from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB). 

Here is the latest Project update

{ for previous up-dates on the Five Villages Re-build project click here }.

Village Hall Rebuild Project
July 2020 Update

The project team has been encouraged by the engagement of the new potential builders, most of whom have visited the site and all of whom have asked questions relating to various aspects of the technical build.

 With price offers returned by mid-July we’ll plan to start assessing bids immediately and will discuss the bids with our QS professionals for their views, thoughts and recommendations. Contract signing is a reality now, sooner than later.

 Since the last funding award in January, we learned in late June of our success in winning more funding from alandfill creditfunder which is of course a super boost to the project.

 So we have backing from all of our funders – either having received the funds already or have received fresh confirmation that the pledged funds are still available for our project. Our big two funders are The National Lottery (ca. £647k) and Sport England (ca £95k).

 The third biggest funding amount will come from the Public Works Loan Board – (PWLB) to whom our three parish councils applied last year for a loan. This loan will be financed from the increase in the parish councils’ precept which was the subject of a 2019 residents’ survey seeking approval of same. Approval was overwhelmingly given and as such our three parish councils are fully engaged in this project for the benefit of the community. 

 The PWLB approved the loan last year. However the result of the above events (value engineering exercises, slowing down of UK activity, the postponement of normal business activity, public and parish council proceedings not least the closing of our hall) was a hibernation of project progress. An extension to the timing of the PWLB agreed loan is currently being requested so as to re-align to our project timetable.

 Given that a loan has already been approved by the PWLB, we are hopeful that the parishes’ request for this vital extension is approved again. Without it and with no time left to re-start fundraising, the project would fail at the very point at which we are close to signing a contract and starting the build.

 The Five Villages Project Team