TWENTY years ago, most people in Worcester knew little about Huntingdon Hall and even less about Chris Jaeger.

Today the pair are a legend in their own backyard, inexorably linked, like the London Palladium and Bruce Forsyth on the slightly bigger stage.

Yet back in the 1980s few folk imagined the interesting, but downbeat, Countess of Huntingdon's Church, which had remained stoically rooted to the spot while the tower cranes and an army of brickies erected the CrownGate shopping centre around it, would emerge as Worcester's cultural nerve centre.

A concert hall of real character, attracting the off-beat and the famous and offering an atmosphere that can only be described as unique.

For where else can you hand jive to the music while sitting bolt upright in a wooden church pew designed for repentance rather than rock and roll?

Which was probably not what the Methodists had in mind when they built it in the early 1800s.

Recently a clear-out of old files here at Berrow's House revealed the pictures on this page taken during the hall's conversion in the 1980s.

The original was erected in 1773 by the formidable female leader of the Methodist Movement, Selina Countess of Huntingdon.

It proved highly popular and drew congregations from far and wide. Even by the time it was completed crowds were being turned away and the original chapel was pulled down and another one built in 1804 to accommodate 1,000 people which had to be further enlarged in 1815 to hold 1,500. This is the building to be seen today.

The present church is essentially late Georgian, although early Victorian in style and in the shape of a Jew's harp. New box pine pews were added in 1839 for which rents were paid and in the same year the gallery, Minister's House and school building were added.

The centrepiece of the chapel is its magnificent organ built by John Nicholson in 1840, the first to be erected by the firm. It was subsequently enlarged in 1896 and underwent major restoration work in 1987.

The magnificence of the Chapel's interior more than compensated for what it lacked in exterior appearance. Although it fitted into the local landscape, for it was surrounded by the crowded buildings of Bird Port.

By the mid 19th Century there were Sunday schools as well as day and evening schools, clothing clubs, a library and a mission in Africa. The congregation was drawn from all parts of the city and up to the 1920s the church was so crowded that people sat in the gangways between the pews.

Even in its early days the courtyard, with its entrance now on to Deansway, had an air of peace and tranquillity.

By the 1960s however, congregations were dwindling and maintenance was proving beyond the means of the Huntingdon Connexion, which owned it.

The last service took place in the chapel in 1976, when the building was in a desperate state of repair.

In the mid-1960s the chapel had a Compulsory Purchase Order placed on it and, for the next 10 years continued in the uncertain knowledge that one day it could be pulled down.

A remarkable campaign was launched by Worcester Civic Society to save this unique building, described by the Georgian Group as "One of the finest examples of non-conformist architecture in the country."

The battle to save the building was long and hard but eventually successful. In 1977, the City of Worcester Building Preservation Trust was formed and undertook to restore and adapt the chapel to give it a new future as a concert hall, arts centre and music school.

Worcester City Council purchased the freehold of the site from the Huntingdon Connexion, and leased it to the Trust, which over the subsequent 10 years carried out the largest restoration project of its kind ever undertaken in the city.

The first phase of work was completed in 1983, with the Trust raising over £330,000, spent on major structural work to the chapel and creating the Elgar School of Music in the cottages fronting on to Deansway.

In the same year the Elgar School of Music opened, offering tuition to all age groups in a wide variety of instruments.

The second phase of work the Trust undertook was the restoration of the interior of the chapel including the Nicholson organ, and a further £500,000 was raised to restore it to its original glory - it was described by John Betjamin as "unique and irreplaceable".

The chapel was reopened in August 1987 as a concert hall and arts centre and, to be strictly honest, struggled.

But then in 1995 Chris Jaeger arrived as its director and, as they say, things just began to roll. From the relative financial comfort of running a folk agency at Cleobury Mortimer, he pitched himself into the hurly-burly of an operation that was £20,000 in debt when he took over and swallows £90,000 a year in running costs.

But Chris turned it around and now Huntingdon Hall is known as one of the most innovative venues in the Midlands.

The pictures discovered in this newspaper's old archive files revealingly capture the 1980s conversion from chapel to arts venue.

The substantial presence of

Chris Jaeger had yet to enter the building.