Bexhill Youth & Community Centre History
The Centre as it is has been here since 1887 when it was built to mark the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. It was named The Bexhill Institute, and was used as a reading room for Bexhill. It was built on land given by The Earl of De La Warr. In 1919 Church Army took over the running of the building and it was used as a social centre. Over both the world wars the centre was used as a canteen for the forces.
During 1963/64 the then Town Mayor of Bexhill adopted the Youth Centre for his appeal project and part of the building was replaced with a modern sports hall and office accommodation. In 1994/5 under a review of its work Church Army decided that building based work was not the way they wanted to work and withdrew from the centre at the same time under the guidance from the district youth worker and the management committee it was also decided that East Sussex County Council Youth Services could not continue to work out of the building. A group of the workers, young people and users fought to keep the building open.
Bexhill Youth and Community Association was formed in 1995 to continue the running of the Centre, made up of the former workers, young people and users of the Youth Centre, and many community groups have used and still use the building. We have an age range of users between the ages of 2 and 90.
We receive no funding from the local or county council to carry on our work and rely on hiring fees from the groups that use us and also the Foreign Students during the summer.