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Eastbourne Bandstand

Bandstands in EnglandBuildings and structures completed in 1935Buildings and structures in EastbourneGrade II listed buildings in East SussexMusic venues in East Sussex
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Eastbourne Bandstand 2005
Eastbourne Bandstand 2005

The Eastbourne Bandstand is a bandstand on the seafront of the East Sussex coastal town of Eastbourne, with an attached colonnade and viewing decks. Built in 1935 to the designs of the Borough Council Engineer, Leslie Rosevere. Neo-Grec style, constructed of cream faience with some decorative blue, green and black faience, with its unique semi-circular design and blue domed roof; there is no other in the United Kingdom. It has a main arena, middle and upper balconies for seating and originally seated 3,500 but with current health and safety laws this has been reduced to 1,600. The building of the bandstand formed part of the main seafront improvements, the bandstand itself cost £28,000 and was surmounted with a stainless steel spire. The project engineer was Leslie Rosevere. The first concerts were given on the 28 July 1935 with a total of 10,400 attending all three concerts and paying 3d each. With an audience of 8,000, the bandstand was officially opened on the 5 August 1935 by the Lord Lieutenant of the county, Lord Leconfield. For many years the bandstand played host to a full programme of military bands. On a daily basis the bands would play from Easter until the end of October. Over the years this was reduced, mainly because audience number was dropping and in 2001 action had to be taken as the costs of the military bands were far out weighing the audience receipts. The local civilian bands were attracting similar audiences to those of military. It was therefore decided that the military band be cut further. If the bandstand were to survive as a musical entertainment venue, new audiences and entertainments had to be found. The introduction of big band nights, rock 'n' roll, Last Night of the Proms and 1812 Firework Night was a significant component of the filling of the financial gap. In 2006, these actions saw the introduction of tribute concerts, which were hugely successful, resulting in the attraction of a significantly larger audience, reviving the bandstand. The bandstand to this day plays an important part in the musical entertainment on the south coast offering around 150 concerts per year. There is a commemorative plaque opposite the bandstand in memory of Eastbourne bandsman John Wesley Woodward, who was one of those playing on the Titanic when it sank on 15 April 1912. In recent years the bandstand has featured in numerous television programmes such as Foyle's War, and is shown in the opening sequence of BBC South East Today.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Eastbourne Bandstand (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Eastbourne Bandstand
Grand Parade,

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Latitude Longitude
N 50.764472222222 ° E 0.28944444444444 °
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Address

Eastbourne Bandstand

Grand Parade
BN21 3AD , Meads
England, United Kingdom
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Eastbourne Bandstand 2005
Eastbourne Bandstand 2005
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Central Methodist Church, Eastbourne
Central Methodist Church, Eastbourne

The former Central Methodist Church was until 2018 the main Methodist place of worship in Eastbourne, a town and borough in the English county of East Sussex. The large town-centre building, with attached schoolrooms and ancillary buildings, was the successor to earlier Methodist places of worship in the area. Soldiers brought the denomination to the area in 1803, when an isolated collection of clifftop villages stood where the 19th-century resort town of Eastbourne developed. A society they formed in that year to encourage Methodism's growth and outreach survives. Local Methodist worshipper and historian Carlos Crisford designed the lavish church in 1907, and it has been used for worship ever since—even as several other Methodist churches in the town and surrounding villages have declined and closed. For several years until 2013, it also housed a Baptist congregation displaced from their own church building. Central Methodist Church is a Grade II listed building. A reorganisation of Methodist worship in the Eastbourne area and closer links with the United Reformed Church led to the formation of a Local ecumenical partnership in early 2018 between Central Methodist Church, Greenfield Methodist Church and two United Reformed congregations, which all came together under the name Emmanuel Church. Worship was consolidated at one of the buildings pending a rebuilding project to provide a new church and community building, and the other premises—including Central Methodist Church—were vacated. The church was then occupied by a Pentecostal group, which has renamed the premises Deliverance Centre Eastbourne and which continues to use the church as its main place of worship.