Putting South Australia’s Community Halls on Record
Think about the smallest town in your neck of the woods. You know the one – barely a handful of houses and a sign you’d miss if you blinked. Chances are, it still has a community hall.
For country people, the local town hall is a ‘do-everything’ building, holding the stories of the towns that grew up around them. One week you’re watching a school performance from a plastic chair. The next, the same space hosts a community meeting. A week later, families gather for a wedding reception. Joy, grief, celebration and everything in between move through those same doors.
That simple reality is what sparked For the Love of Community Halls, a new project by Becky Hirst documenting South Australia’s settler-era community halls through a large-format photographic book.
“Honestly, it came from a very simple realisation that these buildings are everywhere, and yet we rarely stop to really see them,” Becky says.
After spending much of her career working in regional communities, halls kept showing up in Becky’s life in practical and mostly unremarkable ways. Meetings, workshops, celebrations, fundraisers and long conversations that unfolded simply because a hall was where people gathered.
“I noticed that every regional town I drove through had one,” she says. “At some point I thought, why has no one properly documented these places?”
For Becky, halls are not just functional spaces. They’re deeply social ones.
“Community halls are the social infrastructure of regional life,” she says. “They’re where people gather in joy and in grief, where decisions are argued, cakes are baked, dances are held, disasters are weathered, and local identity is shaped over generations.”
Again and again, Becky noticed how early settler communities placed enormous importance on building a hall. It was almost non-negotiable, a central part of forming a town. That history continues to fascinate her.
“I often wonder about the people who built them and what it meant to create a shared place so early on,” she says.
Originally from the UK, Becky sees familiar similarities in South Australia’s halls.
“Coming from the UK, it reminds me of the essentials in a village, the pub, the church, the old telephone box, those communal anchors that tell you people live together here,” she says. “To me, halls represent belonging. They’re often humble, practical spaces, but they hold an extraordinary amount of shared history.”
Becky’s had the idea of producing a coffee table book for a long time, but it was a recent work trip to the Clare Valley that finally pushed it into gear. Travelling with her daughters during the school holidays, she pointed out one of the many striking halls they passed and talked through the idea she’d been mulling over.
“My eldest quickly told me she thought it was such a good idea and I should do it,” Becky says. “I was surprised at her really positive reaction, and so here I am.”
When Becky shared the project publicly, the response showed her that she wasn’t alone in how she felt.
“The speed, warmth and volume of the response surprised me,” she says. “People started tagging friends in country towns, sending photos, offering local contacts, and saying things like ‘our hall has to be included.’”
What struck her most was how deeply people cared about these places, even if they’d not stepped inside a community hall for years.
“It reminded me how deeply people care about these places,” she says.
She was also surprised by how many younger people connected with the idea, particularly online, challenging assumptions about who values these spaces and why.
At its heart, For the Love of Community Halls aims to become a lasting record. A curated, full-colour hardcover book documenting around 100 halls across South Australia, including those still in use and those now as places of memory.
“I’d love it to be a book that sits in homes, libraries, visitor centres and council offices,” Becky says. “Something people can open and say, ‘that’s our hall.’”
She also hopes the project helps people recognise these buildings as part of the social fabric of regional communities, particularly at a time when many halls face pressure from rising costs, maintenance needs and insurance challenges.
For all the changes country towns face, the local hall often remains. A place that shifts with the town and holds space for whatever comes next. Becky Hirst’s project asks people to pause, look again, and recognise the ‘do-everything’ buildings that have quietly held country life together for generations, and still do.
If your town has a hall, this project needs you. Head to the project website at communityhalls.com.au. Have a look, then get in touch with your local council, progress association or town hall committee and let them know about it. These buildings belong to communities, and this book relies on those communities stepping forward to make sure their hall is part of the record.
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