Fairfield Halls

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Fairfield Halls, ready to receive Tony Hadley and Cindarella on Ice

Fairfield Halls is an arts centre in Croydon, London, England and opened in 1962. It contains a concert hall, the Ashcroft Theatre (named for local Peggy Ashcroft), the Arnhem Gallery civic hall (Croydon is twinned with Arnhem) and an art gallery.

The large concert hall is frequently used for BBC recordings. The Halls are the home of the London Mozart Players, whose principal guest conductor is flautist, Sir James Galway. Many famous faces have appeared at the Fairfield Halls, including the Beatles, Family(who recorded the first side of their album, Anyway in the halls), Robert Cray, Status Quo, Kenny Rogers, Daniel O'Donnell, Shakin' Stevens, James Last, Bucks Fizz, Judith Durham and Coolio.

On March 7th, 2007, it was used by The John Fisher and Coloma schools who did a joint performance of Handel's Messiah. It is frequently used by local schools as the venue for their annual choral concerts.

The halls are built on the site of Croydon's historic fair field, and above disused railway cuttings which used to link the main London to Brighton railway to Croydon Central Station in what is now Queen's Gardens.

[edit] The future

Croydon Council, the freeholder of the land, has ambitious plans to remodel the Fairfield. Various proposals have been put forward including conversion of the famous Concert Hall into a "multi-use" space including a "fly tower" for scenery. This development is to be paid for by a very large housing development next to and alongside the Fairfield.

The long-term commercial viability of the Fairfield is still threatened by the local council's proposed development of an arena on the Croydon Gateway site next to East Croydon Station. The council-backed scheme includes a multi-use arena that would target the same income-generating markets that keep Fairfield alive today.

[edit] Trivia

Fairfield's Concert Hall was used as a brief location for Robert Langdon's speech for The Da Vinci Code film. You can see it in the first ten minutes of the film where Langdon (Tom Hanks) gives a talk to students about symbols.