Community
12 September, 2025
Fresh flooring for hall
WORKS on the Darlington Hall have progressed following the relaying of new floorboards this week.
The flooring update is part of the hall’s maintenance, with the Darlington Mechanics Institute Hall and Recreation Reserve Committee of Management working on major projects to preserve the 150-year-old hall.
As Western District Newspapers reported last month, restumping works for the hall were completed, with the laying of new flooring the next step in the refurbishment.
Darlington resident Tony Wynd, who has been helping with the flooring, said the workers for the flooring came from a Ballarat business which had ties with a former resident of Darlington.
“The owner of the business is a second cousin of one of the locals who used to live here years ago,” he said.
“It’s fantastic considering what it was – they replaced every bearer all the way around.
“It was a huge job digging all the stumps in – that all had to be done by hand.
“Hopefully it’ll give the hall another 100 years.”
The flooring is hickory wood, which was sourced from Birregurra and will be sanded following the wiring and plumbing of the kitchen.
Mr Wynd said much of the original kitchen will be reinstalled, with final installation to occur after the repaired walls are plastered and painted.
“The long-term plan is to reclad it and put new cement sheet up – we want to put them all the way around because they don’t rot,” he said.
“It’s probably a month or two off, but progress is being made.
“We need more funding and we’re hoping we can get some of that from the wind farms – it’ll be a really expensive project.
“We got the roof done and that came from a grant from the Berrybank Wind Farm, which was fantastic.
“This is used as an emergency centre when there are fires and other incidents, so we want it up and running fairly fast.”
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