Stop 4: Hairdresser-Information
This building is currently a hairdressers known as the “Style Studio”.
It was originally built in 1798 as the Providence Chapel with a subscription from the Orange Street Independent Church in Portsmouth. It was built to combat the behaviour of residents of Rowland’s Castle who on Sundays behaved with ‘ribaldry and rowdiness.’ The chapel was later closed for a short time because the local people complained about the preachers, and one of them was actually pulled from the pulpit! It ceased being a chapel in 1881, when the Church on the Green was built to accommodate the growing population of Rowlands Castle.
The building then became a Wheelwrights (repairing wheels).
From the 1920s, the building was known as “ Rickards Tea Room ” until the late 1950’s. Various village social events were held here, including the Carnival dance in June 1930 and the Jubilee Tea for George V in 1935: “There was a procession led by the band of the British Legion, the Rowland’s Castle branch, to the recreation ground where there was children’s sports, a Jubilee Pageant, Maypole dancing and children’s teas followed by old folks’ teas at 5.30pm, both in Rickard’s Tea Garden”. (A Rowlands Castle Miscellany).
After that it became a café with a jukebox and in the 1990s was a hairdressers called “Alexandrena’s”. The Style Studio opened in 2006.