The Maltonian Website - for Malton School
The Milton Rooms - an article from the Gazette and Herald June 2023
This article was originally published in the Gazette and Herald during June 2023, but since then additions have been made regarding nearby buildings.
It is hard to imagine Malton without the Milton Rooms: they do seem to be a 'Town Hall' in many respects. A registered charity having had multiple uses since opening in 1931, they were created in celebration of the 21st. birthday of Viscount Milton. He was a prominent Fitzwilliam family member, their family seat bring Milton Hall near Peterborough.
Of the very many types of functions that have been held in the centre, different ones do stand out above the rest for individual people. Malton Grammar School speech days were held there from 1951 to 1958 [more news clips available from the News Index] whilst the Saturday night 'Seven - O - Clock Rock' moved from its original cramped setting in Spital Street to the Milton Rooms in 1957 and became an established social occasion. It was one of the earliest 'discos' before the term became established as part of our everyday language. One remembers Frankie Vaughan's 'Kewpie Doll' and Jackie Wilson's 'Reet Petite' (n.b. Those were not the names of girls present at the disco!) The hall was built over the top of the Masonic Lodge whichi still underneath the main structure and is frequently used but not open to the general public. At the rear of the Milton Rooms are the Assembly Subscription Rooms which front onto Yorkersgate and are the present home of Malton Museum.
On the site of the present Milton Rooms there was originally a pub called the 'Old Globe', and it can be seen in a painting by the wife of a local G.P., Mrs.Forsyth. They lived in Forsyth House at the top of the market and the painting shows the view from their upper room. Good photographs of the building prior to its replacement by the Milton Rooms are quite rare.
Further along the lower part of the market are retail outlets, one of which was 'The Silver Grid' fish and chip shop which was still largely unchanged internally (chrome fittings) even up to the mid-eighties. Its sign lettering was concocted out of a recovered sign from a shop frontage in Norton by an 'out of town' entrepreneur in the 1930s who started the business and obviously believed in recycling. There have also been 'Silver Grids' in both Scarborough and Whitby.
Next door and nearer to the Royal Oak was a radio/gramophone retailer (Wray's?) where the first auto-change record player (gramophone was demonstrated (78 r.p.m. of course). To avoid confusion, there is also a Royal Oak in Old Malton.The following items are of interest to this article :- 1. The Milton Rooms, 2. Speech day for Malton Grammar School in 1952, 3. The Old Globe in a vista across the lower end of the market place, 4. The Old Globe in the background, 5. The Silver Grid frontage, 6. The origins of its signage - shop front in Commercial Street, 7. Wray's music shop, latterly Hill and Jackson.
Next door and nearer to the Royal Oak was a radio/gramophone retailer (Wray's?) where the first auto-change record player (gramophone was demonstrated (78 r.p.m. of course). To avoid confusion, there is also a Royal Oak in Old Malton.The following items are of interest to this article :- 1. The Milton Rooms, 2. Speech day for Malton Grammar School in 1952, 3. The Old Globe in a vista across the lower end of the market place, 4. The Old Globe in the background, 5. The Silver Grid frontage, 6. The origins of its signage - shop front in Commercial Street, 7. Wray's music shop, latterly Hill and Jackson.
Acknowledgements :- 1. British Listed Buildings.co.uk, 2. Malton Gazette, 3. Painting by Mrs.Forsyth - from the upper floor of Forsyth House, 4, 5. 6 and 7 - Woodhams Stone.
Photos referenced in the article
