Kingsway Hall
Among the prominent Methodists associated with the Kingsway Hall was Donald Soper, who was Superintendent Minister at the West London Mission from 1936 until his retirement in 1978.
These venues were steadily reclaimed as sites for new hotels, so eventually, in 1906, the church found a more permanent home for the Mission at 67 Great Queen Street, where there was a chapel.
It was then decided to join the development taking place on the new Kingsway road and build a new Mission including a spacious chapel.
A new seven-storey building called Wesley House was home to the West London Mission from 1911 until 1972, when it merged with the Hinde Street Methodist Chapel (a merger not completed until 1982).
The organ, built in 1912 by J. J. Binns of Leeds, was inaugurated 4 April 1913 with half its cost of £1,500 being contributed by American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.
When German air raids on London started in 1940, Soper opened a "rest and feeding centre" in Kingsway Hall's basement (not far from Holborn underground station).
One such meeting was held by the Free French on 18 June 1940 at which General Charles De Gaulle addressed them to encourage resistance to the very recent German invasion.
At the same time, they found other aspects of the hall difficult since nearby parking was scarce, it was cold in the winter, was dingy and dirty, and lacked food services.
The conductor often faced the horseshoe balcony, giving that individual an unusual prospect of looking at the orchestra rising rapidly away from him due to the five percent raked floor that sloped down towards him and the stage behind.
His Master's Voice began recording at Kingsway Hall on 3 November 1925 using electrical equipment obtained from the American Western Electric company, to whom they paid a royalty on each disc sold for the patents involved, and continued making regular use of it even after the construction of its own recording complex at Abbey Road Studios in 1931.
From about 1933, EMI used its own equipment designed by their engineer Alan Blumlein, who successfully circumvented the Western Electric patents and thus avoided their substantial royalty costs.
EMI rarely used the venue for chamber music, but Decca recorded solo keyboard, violin sonatas and string quartets.
The final recording, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli, was made with Deutsche Grammophon a few days later: Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut, which finished taping on 5 January 1984.
At 3.30 in the afternoon of Friday, 6 December 1912, the Lord Mayor of London, Colonel Sir David Burnett, presided over the opening ceremony of a new Methodist Church Hall.
However, regular recording did not begin in the Hall until January 1926, a year of economic depression and the General Strike, when HMV signed an exclusive contract with the church authorities.
At first, the new technology allowed the disc recording machines to be located in other buildings in London (Queen's Hall and other HMV premises), the microphones being connected to them using Post Office telephone lines.
In the years between 1912 and 1926, including those of the Great War, the Hall was also used for concerts conducted by the likes of Beecham and Boult, with the young John Barbirolli among the cellists, its fine acoustic having been discovered early in its life.
The centenary of the WLM was celebrated at the Methodist Hinde Street premises in 1997, and the artifacts and documents of the exhibition are held at the London Metropolitan Archive.
EMI were to retain this guarded access to a prized acoustic until the Hall was acquired by the Greater London Council in 1983, after which all recording activity ceased, the final contract expiring on 31 December that year.
However, occasionally, when they were not using the Hall themselves, Decca and EMI agreed to allow access to small labels using their own equipment and technicians, even loaning microphones on occasion.
In the aftermath of World War II, Decca needed artists and so invited a number of continental orchestras to record in London, usually while they were on tour.
Infrequent visiting conductors were Krauss, Celibidache, Kleiber Snr, Furtwangler, Knapperstsbusch, Weingartner, Szell, Dorati, Leinsdorf and Bohm.
These recordings can be explored by browsing the several discographies compiled by Philip Stuart for a number of London Orchestras (LPO, LSO, ASMF and ECO) and by Stephen Pettit for the Philharmonia (up to only 1987).
Rumbles from the Piccadilly line plagued its whole life, as did extraneous noise from traffic and aircraft, neighbouring buildings and from the inhabitants of the Wesley Hall Mission next door.
Indeed, the roof collapsed in early September 1969 and put the Hall out of action whilst repairs were made, and imminent sessions for the ASMF Vivaldi Four Seasons were hastily moved to St John's, Smith Square.
In October 1987, a centenary exhibition was held at the Mission's then home at Hinde Street, near Wigmore Hall, and a history published, authored by Professor Philip Bagwell.
Gramophone magazine and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe were among the very few to object, and archeological excavations were conducted by the Museum of London, following which no widespread opposition was raised to the granting of the demolition order, English Heritage being unable to justify preservation.
