The opening of the Pavillion later this year by Kiama Mayor Sandra McCarthy will mark an important milestone in the 150th year of Kiama Council.
Kiama has its first Town Hall!
There have been about eight attempts to get a town hall in the past, with the OddFellows Hall ( on the current site of Kiama Leagues club, but the original cellars of bluestone, where meetings of the Oddfellows and other private welfare mutual societies met, in ceremonies reminiscent of the Freemasons)still exist, and the Antrim Cinema on Surf Beach placed the community role for dances and events, and even ice skating rinks! Before this the much smaller Court house played this role on many occasions
Of course it is based on the pre-1938 Kiama Pavillion (without the Governor’s Box) which burned down that year.
If only we can get a new Kiama History book to replace Bailey’s Blue Haven and have a decent heritage tourism program!
(2010 Update, a new book by Michelle Hoctor should be launched sometime this year)
It was finished in early January 2009 in time for the Kiama show by Jones Nicholson Consulting.
http://www.kiamaindependent.com.au/article/new_era_for_kiama_show_society/
Click to access 070109-Kiama-Pavilion-opens-with-Kiamafest-2009.pdf
and offically opened by NSW Governor Marie Bashir in August, 2009.
http://www.kiamaindependent.com.au/article/governor_opens_pavilion/
The Kiama Pavilion in full swing at the Kiama Show 2010.
It also gets used for conferences and youth concerts such as this one with the Polariod People
The photo of the pre-1938 Kiama Pavillion is excellent, can I ask where you sourced it?
Most Heritage photos of Kiama come from the Weston- Cocks collection(Westons published the Kiama Independent for many years and the Cocks had a photographic studio in Kiama). The originals are held in archive at Wollongong Uni, but the best place to go to is ‘Illawarra Images’, which is hosted by the Wollongong Library and type in various keyword. There are many hundreds of pics!