Dunstable Yesteryear: The Salvation Army's halls in 1937 and 1993

The colour photo inserted here was part of the display, showing work on building the hall in September 1993.

It is one of a series of pictures taken by 87-year-old Ray Jackson, a life-long Salvation Army member who began playing instruments with its band when he was just seven.

His photo shows in the background the Baptist Church in St Mary’s Gate and the spire of the Methodist Church.

The Salvationists came to Dunstable in 1885, when they leased a former shoemaker’s premises in Church Street (today’s Leveloff grocery business) and renamed it The Assembly Rooms. Their first meeting was led by a young, female evangelist named Captain Selby who gathered her first congregation by singing a hymn, accompanied by her tambourine, underneath the central street lamp at Dunstable crossroads.

Three years later they moved to High Street North, in premises near the Nag’s Head public house.

The Dunstable Corps of the Salvation Army was based there for nearly 50 years, initiating an enormous amount of good work in the town. The Corps eventually built its own citadel on the corner of St Mary’s Street and Bull Pond Lane. The main photo here, traced in the Dunstable Gazette files, shows the stone-laying ceremony at the new building under construction in July 1937. The first stone was put in place by Mr P.W.Lockhart, seen here making a speech at the event.

The present church was built on the same site but with its entrance facing Bull Pond Lane.

Yesteryear is compiled by John Buckledee, chairman of Dunstable and District Local History Society.