What is now called the local village hall can have a variety of origins before being designated as the village hall in the early part of the 20th century. If the building/room originated before then it was usually a local endeavour, such as a donation from a local dignitary, a place for adult education (reading rooms - although these often fell short of the ideal ) or the old village school hall before nationalised education. However, many were also created following the first world war, sometimes as a memorial hall to local causalities, which is why some of them incorporate the local memorial, or making use of post-war buildings now demobilised. Currently there are about 9-10,000 village halls across the UK, which still often serve for local uses.

The creation of these local community halls were an attempt to provide a space for local usage to encourage local people the opportunity for socialising and community rebuilding often in communities where large numbers of local families suffering post-war - in some areas due to the local 'Pals battalions' communities could have been disproportionally suffering from fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons lost in the recent conflict. In short, they were a local focus of efforts to rejuvenate, and rebuild local communities either due to the war, or economic pressures on local populations. They also provided some usage for very local government if the village was also the seat of the parish council.

In the decades since, local village halls have allowed a space for the local community to explore local activities - be this local events, regular group activities, local government issues, and occasionally as areas of the application of central government purposes - for example in WW2 allocated as local HQs for Home Guard units, training centres for first aid, etc, or in the recent pandemic for local vaccinations - or local authority use in emergencies (often used as central locations for organising local flood-relief etc) .

Locally funded rather than centrally, often classified as charities, the loss of some areas of a local sense of community (for a variety of reasons) has often led to some local village halls falling out of use or condition, but in many areas they remain a focal point for the upwards of 6,000 villages and small communities across the UK.

See:
Burchardt, J. (1999). Reconstructing the Rural Community: Village Halls and the National Council of Social Service, 1919 to 1939. Rural History, 10(2), 193-216