Historic Coventry Trust

Historic Coventry Trust (HCT) is a Heritage Development Trust which aims to bring new life to the city’s heritage, finding innovative ways to sustain historic places and to inspire, involve and connect people with the city’s past. As an entrepreneurial Heritage Development Trust, the Trust aims to generate revenue from restored historic buildings such as Drapers’ Hall, Charterhouse, The Burges and Hales Street (restored as the national demonstrator project for Historic England’s High Street Heritage Action Zone programme).

HCT’s income in 2020/21 was £6.9 million (attributable mainly to its development activity rather than building operation) and in that year it had eight employees.

Project facts

Client: HCT

Location: Central Coventry

Design team

• Architects and full professional team – Prince’s Foundation
• Main contractors – J Tomlinson
• Project management – Ridge
• Building opened – November 2021
• Build time – 23 months; construction started on site in November 2019 with practical completion in October 2021.

Overall cost: £4.7 million

Sources of funding:

• Culture Capital Funding, Arts Council England
• Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership (Local Growth Fund and Getting Building Fund)
• The Prince’s Trust Foundation
• other private trusts and foundations including Wolfson, Garfield Weston, Swire, Foyle and the Drapers Company.

Procurement strategy: through The Prince’s Foundation Framework agreement

General description of works

This was a refurbishment of a 1505m2 Grade II Listed Regency building called Drapers’ Hall which was constructed in 1832 by the Worshipful Company of Drapers as a hall containing social rooms and used by them until the 1960s.

The project included works to create new entrances and overhaul and repair the exterior of the building including the unique stone facade and roof. Inside saw a combination of restoration and reconfiguration of spaces. A new staircase and a lift, and an updated reception area all contributed to improving circulation and access. The primary spaces known as the Ballroom, Tea Room and Reading Room (by their historic purposes) were restored. The Ballroom has been refurbished as a performance space accommodating 160 people. Likewise, for the Billiard Room which has a capacity of 60. Office space was created and toilet facilities updated. On the lower ground floors, the original scullery was conserved, respecting the war shelters that had been located there. The plant was replaced and storage space created, along with music practice rooms.  

Case study

Historic Coventry Trust (HCT) has attracted high levels of interest in its model of restoring heritage buildings and bringing them back into use. The Trust developed a framework agreement with Coventry City Council, signed in 2019, which commits the Council to a transfer of 22 key historic properties in the city to HCT in order to save and protect these important historic assets for future generations. Each site is transferred on the basis of a detailed business case once the Trust has funding in place and full plans approved for the repair, reuse and long-term care of each building. It represents the biggest heritage asset transfer in the UK to date, with an ambitious programme of restoration over a10-year timeframe. Part of the rationale for the scale was the potential to retain and capitalise on the specific expertise required to successfully bring heritage properties back into use. Dr Geoff Willcocks, Vice-Chair of HCT explains, “What we’ve seen with so many projects nationally is that when they are completed, all the accumulated knowledge and expertise just vanishes, so this model is also about building a repository of knowledge that can be redeployed from one project to the next.”

For HCT, a key criterion for deciding on the portfolio of projects is the site’s ability, once restored and developed, to ‘stand on its own two feet’. Careful consideration is given to the business modelling for the operational building or site. A foundational principle is staying close to the building’s original use – finding a way of doing what the building was designed for, albeit in a modernised fashion, rather than working against it. In the case of Drapers’ Hall, the purpose was fundamentally about social connection and this remains at the heart of the creative and business models. Dr Willcocks, who led the project explains, “We ask what was the building originally meant to do and can you modernise that use? If you can, your chances of success are greatly strengthened. In the case of Drapers’ Hall, the original purpose was bringing people together socially, doing business, enjoying concerts; that’s how it worked then – and what underpins what we are doing now.”

In the event, part of HCT’s 10-year timescale was accelerated and a major suite of works were delivered in just four years, in large part to be ready for Coventry’s year as City of Culture in 2021 - 22. In the case of Drapers’ Hall there was a further impetus as it was identified in 2018 as one of seven national projects to mark Prince Charles’ 70th birthday celebrations (to be completed by 2021) . This involved the Prince’s Trust Foundation committing financial support and expertise (including conservation) to the project, as well as delivering architectural and project management services.

Many of the drivers for the project were about place-making and pride in place:

• Drapers’ Hall was a building falling into disrepair, having been vacant for over 30 years. Even empty it was still representing a cost burden to the Council (for example, in terms of maintenance, security etc) and over time it would have represented a growing liability (state of stonework, the roof and so forth). Coventry City were therefore open to a partnership that might address this and as freeholders of the building have granted HCT a 250-year lease at a peppercorn rent.
• Because of the extent of other works in the immediate vicinity (in the Cathedral Quarter), it also became a case of trying to avert the issue of Drapers’ Hall as a potential ‘rotten tooth’ within the locale, especially as the City was preparing to welcome thousands of additional visitors for the City of Culture year.
• The year as City of Culture presented a completely unique opportunity to ‘pump prime’ audiences with a reopening programme that was too good to miss. Other projects have shown how hard building audience share quickly and effectively can be, without additional stimulus. Drapers’ Hall was in fact the only venue actually opening within the year, which was a powerful bonus.
• Restoring the hall was also about filling a gap in provision. There was no fit for purpose city centre venue for mid-scale music (outside of rock and pop), particularly one appropriate for young people to consider a focal point of music-making.

Outcomes to date

As a new venue for music, Drapers’ Hall is still finding its way to the optimum model and adjusting to the post City of Culture operating ecology and the changed habits of cultural audiences. However, early outcomes are showing promise.

The size of the performance spaces is one element of Drapers’ Hall’s distinctiveness. With a top capacity in the main space of 180 seats (but an optimum comfort at 160 seats), audiences can enjoy acoustic music in an intimate space – they can watch performers close up in an atmospheric setting. “It’s a chamber style space – people love the acoustic. To be in the space – for example with Talvin Singh [Indian classical tabla performer] – is an amazing experience and it means we are getting audiences who really want to come back” says Dr Willcocks.

The opening seasons have included artists such as Tom Robinson, Talvin Singh and Mammal Hands, Cara Dillon and Jubilee Quartet, Haiku Salut, Jess Gilam, Dele Sosimi, and Braimah Kannah-Mason, with a programme deliberately diverse to serve a mix of communities and reflecting the city’s overall diversity. As Dr Willcocks reflects, learning how to be part of the ecology takes time: “Programming on our own is one thing, but it is also an issue of how we operate in a civic context – how to avoid concert clashes, learning how to programme with others, especially as we are all just getting to a point of establishing a new normal.”

Drapers’ Hall has secured Coventry Music Service (CMS) as its main tenant. As part of the agreement, CMS have office space as well as use of the whole hall in the evenings, Monday to Wednesday. As well as music lessons and ensemble music-making, activities include school holiday courses and workshops, new qualifications, lunchtime concerts, choral practice, rehearsals, and work with teachers. Before becoming tenants, Coventry Music was reaching around 3,000 students per week across the city. Numbers have increased in their first year of occupancy, with weekly work with 4,780 students. Dr Willcocks describes a strong guiding aspiration for Drapers’ Hall to inspire a new generation of musicians and to give them the opportunities to develop their talents: “If we can bring many thousands of kids a year into the space (and it’s a very grand space), it will become their space and they will own it. Then we might see over time some kind of social change, how that evolves generationally. We feel strongly that this place belongs to the city, it’s not a commercial operation that allows you in if you’re lucky…The icing on the cake would be having a child who learnt music through CMS coming back one day as a nationally recognised performer.”

As well as understanding the optimum programme mix and how to meet audience expectations, HCT are also working out how best to deliver a self-sustaining financial model. Income will be driven by a combination of concert income, tenancy income, and, in partnership with an events and food and beverage business, commercial hires. Concerts are usually programmed on Thursday to Sunday, when the venue is also available for hires. Because CMS tends to require building use around school hours, HCT also has the opportunity to service interest from conferences and meetings earlier in the week as well. The management agreement with the commercial operator includes monthly rent, a proportion of takings, and rights to use the hall for commercial events 20 nights per year. In the first year of operation, there were 46 hires, totalling £58,000 in hire fees.

Occupancy rates continue to build through the combined day, late afternoon and evening offers, providing confidence that the Hall is effectively playing its part in driving visitor traffic to the area, resulting in a positive impact on the local economy. Drapers’ Hall is also contributing to the hyper-local collaboration in a Cathedral Quarter Alliance (including among others, the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Holy Trinity Church and St Mary’s Guildhall), which meets every few months and is starting to reap benefits. As Dr Willcocks recounts, “We’re finding we can speak with one voice and find ways of doing things as a collective, for example how we have approached street lighting and wayfinding so far, which is helping the quarter become more of a visitor destination.”

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