Coventry Drapers' Hall transformed into music venue in £5m revamp

The Grade II* listed hall features decorative plasterwork designed to rival the grandeur of the London Drapers' guild hall

A building that survived both the Coventry Blitz and plans for demolition has been given a new lease of life with a £5m refurbishment.

Drapers' Hall, built for the grandees of the city's textile industry in the 1830s, has reopened as a centre for music teaching and performance.

The Grade II* listed building was closed for more than 30 years, Historic Coventry Trust said.

Most of the £5m has come from the city council and Arts Council England.

Last used as a youth magistrates' court, it was built as the headquarters of the Coventry Drapers' Guild.

It was the third Drapers' Hall on the site, replacing the medieval and post-medieval buildings that the "wealthy Guild of Drapers constructed as places to do business, to socialise and to hold events", Historic Coventry Trust said.

However, during World War Two it was lucky to survive when the neighbouring cathedral was bombed, leaving it in ruins.

The building has reopened as a centre for music teaching and performance

Following the revamp, the hall has become the new home of Coventry Music Service, which is responsible for delivering music lessons for schoolchildren.

The building features numerous rooms, including a ballroom, tea room and reading room.

Several of them, including a cellar once used as an air raid shelter, have been repurposed as practice and performance spaces.

David Le Page, artistic director for Stratford-upon-Avon's Orchestra of the Swan, said it was exciting to perform in a new hall, particularly one "right in the centre of Coventry".

He added the space had a "vibrancy about it".

Historic Coventry Trust's Dr Geoff Willcocks, who has been involved in the restoration for 11 years, said: "It is the style of the grand, the very grand London Drapers' guild hall.

"The Coventry Drapers would have wanted a building of equal stature and equal grandeur, which is why it's done in this resplendent Regency style."

It stands opposite the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, destroyed during the blitz