The Universal Hall was built in the grounds of The Park Building. How this site came into the possession of the community is described in Peter Caddy’s autobiography In Perfect Timing p313+4.

…we realised the importance of Findhorn not only as a demonstration of work as ‘love in action’ but also as a training centre where theory and study could also be made available.

But where? It was hard enough finding bedspace for everyone, let alone classrooms, offices and a library. Eileen’s guidance had for some time indicated that The Park building – the house and grounds adjoining us, and belonging to Captain and Mrs Gibson, owners of the caravan site – would one day be part of the whole community; so, as the needs for a ‘college’ building became obvious I was not surprised when the Gibsons put the house up for sale in Spring 1971. They bought a larger one, Cullerne, closer to the village. The asking price for The Park was £12,500 – another large, seemingly ‘impossible’ sum for us to manifest.

Just at that time, a visitor who had been staying in the community for a few days came to me and said that she would like to join us: could I find her a suitable site for a bungalow? I did, and also took her to see The Park. She was not herself interested in the building but told me that her late husband had left £12,000 pounds to be given to a worthy, forward-looking cause that they both would have shared interest in. She felt she had finally found such a project in ours, and offered to buy us The Park building if she could build a bungalow next door to it and use the house’s large annex as her painting studio. I was thrilled by the offer and went straight to David to share the good news.

David would have none of it, declaring that since the entire house was under St. Germain’s protection, whoever bought it for us would have to release it to the community with no strings attached. Somewhat dispirited I wondered whether she was not the right person after all; but that night, David had a vision of St. Germain enfolding the house and grounds in his robe and assuring him that it was all under his protection (St. Germain or the Master R, as you may recall, is in charge of fostering new culture and civilisation). The next morning, the visitor came again to me and said she had woken with the clear feeling that she should buy The Park building and its grounds and give them to the community entirely and without conditions – she would buy a bungalow for herself down the road at Pineridge and build her studio there.

Thus our college now had a physical location in which to take birth.

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It took until 23rd December 1973 for the concept of a ‘hall’ to land, and by Autumn 1974 the project had started – for articles written by Community members at the time please go to Living Record – Building Universal Hall 1974-1983.

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In Perfect Timing, with Jeremy Slocombe & Renata Caddy, FPress, 1996. Available as e-book.