Background

Conisbrough and Denaby are former mining villages located on the edge of the Dearne Valley Regeneration area in South Yorkshire .

Limited facilities with the villages were unable to cope with growing demands of a community badly affected by the closure of the steel and mining industries. The Government's City Challenge Programme in 1991 created channels, after the formation of local partnership Boards, allowing voluntary organisations to apply for funding for new facilities.

The CCA was eventually successful in securing funding for a new Resource Centre via the Dearne Valley Partnership (DVP), match-funded by the European Development Fund (EDF) with the help of Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council (DMBC).

The land previously owned by the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation (CISWO) had been transferred to DMBC who act as Trustees, with the condition that the land/building should be used for community purposes.

Before the design phase of the project, local people and organisations were consulted about ideas and facilities which they would like to see in the building. The incorporation of the findings of the survey has resulted in a multi-purpose-built Community Resource Centre situated in the centre of Conisbrough, which is within the Doncaster Metropolitan Borough in South Yorkshire .

The Building

The Ivanhoe Centre building was completed in August 1997. The building is well-sited on top of a hill, adjacent to a playing field.

It is a prestigious building with panoramic views of the 13 th Century Conisbrough Castle, the surrounding countryside and beyond, particularly to the North and East.

The Ivanhoe Centre has been designed and is operated such as to be ‘user friendly'. Of course, the provision includes toilet facilities with access for wheelchair users. To allow everyone access to the whole of the building there is a lift to the upper floor.

All the accommodation is named such that there is affinity with Sir Walter Scott's novel ‘Ivanhoe' which has associations with the Castle and the district in which Conisbrough is situated.