Today, the unique Grade II listed hall provides the perfect place to display valuable antiquities and fine goods, but in the late nineteenth century, it was the stage for the city centre’s only indoor skating rink.
Local solicitor Warner Wright bought St. Giles Hall in 1876 at a cost of more than £9000 – around £850,870 in today’s money – and developed the building into the Norwich Skating Rink Company with much fanfare.
Opening in September, it was estimated that up to 500 skaters visited the rink each day in its first few months.
The following year, the rink’s facilities were expanded into a theatre where roller skating would occasionally be held.
Viewing galleries were used to watch from above and the hall was equipped with an organ which provided music for visitors to skate to.
Throughout its tenure, the space was used to host plays, operettas, trick cyclists and marionette shows.
But despite its apparent popularity, the business struggled and was sold once in 1877 for £3,400 and then again in 1894 for £1,350.
Lacey & Lincoln, State, Tile and Brick Merchants used the building for nearly a hundred years where they housed stock and had a drive-through showroom, before turning over ownership in 1993 when they ceased trading.
In October 1993, Philip and Jeannie Millward acquired the building and renovated the space to display their private collection of South-Asian arts and crafts and in 2018 it was rebranded as The South Asia Collection Museum and Shop.
Its website says: “The Old Skating Rink, which was built as a place of entertainment, is once again a space to come and explore and discover: home to regularly changing exhibition and gallery spaces, permanent collection areas, and, of course, the fabulous shop.”
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