The Reading Room is part of Fetcham United Charities, whose main activity is running the apartments at Morley Court (opposite the Reading Room). The charity is run by a committee of trustees who are volunteers from the local community, and councillors appointed by Mole Valley District Council. See ”https://fetchamunitedcharities.org/almshouses/” for more information
The original building here was constructed in the early 1800s as four almshouses for local persons of limited means at a time when the population of Fetcham numbered around 300. By the 1880s, these houses had fallen into disrepair and were replaced by new almshouses built on the opposite side of the road. Rather than simply demolish the old almshouses, it was decided by the trustees of Fetcham United Charities to turn three of them into Fetcham’s first village hall with the fourth almshouse serving as a home for a hall caretaker.
The hall became known as the ‘Reading Room’ because one of its main uses was as a place where local educated ladies would read the newspapers and letters to those villagers who were unable to read for themselves. The funds to create the Reading Room were generated by selling a strip of land to the company that was building the nearby railway from Leatherhead to Guildford.
The Reading Room was substantially renovated In the 1980s. The Caretaker’s House was turned into the lobby, kitchen and toilets; a storeroom was added at the back and the garden was landscaped to provide more attractive surroundings. However, the Victorian nature of the hall remains and you can see this in the high wooden ceiling and the wood panelling around the hall and in the wooden porch at the front. In its various forms, the building has now been serving Fetcham for well over two hundred years!
