Reynolds Memorial Hall, Tolaga Bay

Reynolds Memorial Hall, Tolaga Bay

The first Tolaga Bay public hall, opened in 1907, burned down in August 1913. A local station-owner, R.J. Reynolds, provided most of the funds required to rebuild the hall, in memory of his son Ralph, who was killed in a polo accident on Boxing Day 1913. The new hall was opened with a grand concert on New Year’s Day 1915. It was named the Reynolds Memorial Hall (usually shortened in everyday use to ‘Reynolds Hall’)

The hall was registered as a Category II historic place in 1984. It was substantially upgraded at local initiative and formally reopened on Anzac Day 2015.

The hall displays the Tolaga Bay First World War and Second World War rolls of honour. These list the names respectively of 22 and 44 men from the district who were killed in action. It also holds the Tolaga Bay IOOF Lodge No. 155 Second World War roll of honour.

Sources: ‘Savages Visit the Coast’, Poverty Bay Herald, 4/1/1915, p. 3; Sam (G.L.A.) McDonald, Many Roads from Hauiti: A Tolaga Bay Memoir, Gisborne, 2003, pp. 51-2, 74, Sheridan Gundry, A Splendid Isolation: Gisborne: East Coast 1950-2012, Gisborne, 2012, p. 389; ‘Reynolds Hall Ready to Reopen’, Gisborne Herald, 24/4/2015.

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