LONDONDERRY NH

LONDONDERRY NH

The Peter C. Gaskill Memorial Bandstand

Londonderry Common

Built - 1976

Londonderry was originally settled by a group of Irish immigrants who had been visiting the area and decided to set up a community changing the original name of the town from Nutfield to Londonderry after the city in Ireland from whence they came. The area encompassed a large amount of land but later was divided up into other townships - Derry, Windham and parts of Manchester, Salem and Hudson.

The town has a rich history with many famous sons including the Revolutionary War hero General John Stark, signer of the Declaration of Independence - Matthew Thornton, Robert Frost - poet and the first American in space - Alan B. Shepard.

On August 22, 1976, Londonderry's bandstand was dedicated during its "Bicentennial Old Home Days" celebration which ended a 7-year project after the idea of the bandstand had been brought up at a town's final meeting of the 250th Anniversary Committee's agenda. At that time, the committee decided to put aside $1,000 raised during the celebration that had taken place that year. After that, the hope was that the town could cut further costs by building the bandstand from volunteered labor and materials.

In "The History of Londonderry - Volume 3" a "barn raising" for the initial conception of the construction of the bandstand and common area was mentioned but such term never grew to fruition since the idea of the bandstand's construction being a community effort, never developed. The eventual addition of outside help in the building of the structure made the project less like a barn raising and more like a government-contract construction job. The design and construction came from outside sources and the 39th National Guard Band was brought in from Manchester NH to make design suggestions. The architect hired was Jeffrey Gutcheon, a graduate student from M.I.T. in Boston, and a New York native, and the actual construction, basically a volunteer effort, was headed by Nick Codner of Town and Country Construction, a Massachusetts firm.

On August 16, 1980, the bandstand was rededicated to Peter C. Gaskill who served the town of Londonderry and his country "with honor, love and wisdom."

INFORMATION SUPPLIED BY:

Internet, E. Carr - The Londonderry Project