The restoration of the Old Dominican Chapel next to Hartpury Church is now completed and following its nearly £300,000 facelift, which has been done to English Heritage standards, has turned the crumbling building into a community hall to be proud of.

The new hall will be open to the public for the first time this coming weekend from 10am to 5pm and the opening ceremony will be today (Friday) at noon. This evening there will be a celebration in the Old Chapel with wine and buffet and large tombola. Tickets will be £5 at the door.

To celebrate the restoration of the Old Chapel there will be Hartpury harvest flower festival from today till Sunday from 10am to 5pm daily. There will be beautiful displays interpreting the harvest, the land, the sea, the harvest of wool and many others by the very talented church and village flower arrangers.

The Old Chapel is set amongst an interesting group of buildings St Mary's Church and the ancient Tythe Barn and nearby Hartpury Mill set in beautiful countryside by the River Leadon. It was in 1998 that Hartpury Historic Buildings Trust was formed to acquire, restore and convert the former Dominican Chapel into a community hall.

Soon after its purchase the main timbers of the roof began to collapse taking with it the ornate ceiling. Funds were raised and re-roofing carried out and by the summer of 2000 they were ready for work to start to complete the restoration only to find that the rebuilding of GCHQ "spy centre" had wildly distorted local building costs so that the work which was planned would cost considerably more than had been budgeted, then when the work was nearing completion fate stepped in again and the foot and mouth epidemic brought work to an immediate stop to avoid any possible danger of bringing the infection to the adjacent farm and Mr Roger Carter's rare breed Longhorn cattle. Now all that is behind and the trust can look forward to the celebrations to mark the opening.

Mr Jim Chapman, secretary of the trust, has been the driving force in this great project thanks to his foresight, dedication and an enormous amount of hard work he has masterminded this superb effort and raised through grants and many other means and inspired others to raise and give the money to achieve this wonderful result which will benefit the village of Hartpury for this generation and for many generations to come.