The Hanover Community Centre was opened on 3rd June 1977 by Dame Flora Robson as part of the Silver Jubilee celebrations. In 1975, negotiations had started with the Council to get a community centre for Hanover. Funding of £15,000 towards renovation of the building and £3,500 for the first years running costs was approved early in 1976. An enormous amount of effort and a great many hours of work was volunteered by local residents who did the renovation work themselves, including all the carpentry, plastering and plumbing.

History of the community Centre Building
(from ‘Hilly Laine to Hanover’ 2008 Edition)

St Mary’s Boys School (late school of the Annunciation) was opened in 1865 by the Reverend A D Wagner with 21 boys, and moved to Southover Street in 1872. The letters ‘SM’ can still be seen carved over the front entrance. It was known as St Paul’s School when the Annunciation was served by curates from St. Paul’s church. It became the Annunciation School in about 1900, the Corporation’s Handicraft School in 1924, the Southover Street Canteen – or soup kitchen as it was known in the 1930s, an education supply store after the war and is now the Hanover Community centre.

Fifty Years of Change
(from an article published in the Hanover Herald 2006)

Hanover has lost many of its local shops, so those we have left deserve our full support – none of them has an easy time withstanding the competition of the big chains, especially the supermarkets.

If we look back 50 years to 1956, the diversity of shops and businesses in Hanover was striking. You only have to look at a few hundred yards at the bottom of Southover Street where we now have the Greys, the Geese, and the Tea Rooms to see what has been lost.
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The Hanover Community Centre was opened on 3rd June 1977 by Dame Flora Robson as part of the Silver Jubilee celebrations. In 1975, negotiations had started with the Council to get a community centre for Hanover. Funding of £15,000 towards renovation of the building and £3,500 for the first years running costs was approved early in 1976. An enormous ammount of effort and a great many hours of work was volunteered by local residents who did the renovation work themselves, including all the carpentry, plastering and plumbing.