IF you’ve ever wondered why the elegant upstairs Assembly Room of Worcester’s Queen Anne style Guildhall can no longer host a bit of drum and bass – or indeed music of any kind, short perhaps of a harpist or ceremonial bugler - the answer goes back more than 150 years.

To a time when the city almost lost this impressive building altogether.

The Guildhall was completed in 1724, but by 1866 serious structural faults were spotted in the rooms on the upper floor. The following year leading local architect Henry Rowe was called in to survey the civic masterpiece and confirmed the need for what he described as “thorough repairs”.

For another four years the city council dithered over what to do until the Assembly Room problems became all too obvious and it was vital this banqueting hall would have to be closed down and deemed unsafe for public use.

Mr Rowe decreed the Assembly Room could no longer be used “for purposes which would cause great vibration”. Ironically the same restriction which bars the room from use today for dances, discos and events with large numbers of people. This prompted the council’s property committee to propose the bombshell recommendation in 1872 that the Guildhall be totally rebuilt.

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Despite fierce local opposition, a national competition was launched for designs for a new and larger Worcester civic hall. Nine sets of plans were submitted and the winning design by Christopher Wray proposed a grandiose Victorian Guildhall crowned by a tall bell tower.

Then the council had second thoughts, deciding by just one vote to go ahead with a major re-construction. But this in turn was defeated by a single vote. Still faffing, the council called in national architect Alfred Waterhouse to assist in its ruminations. However, he saw this as an opportunity to put forward his own design for a Gothic-style Guildhall with a massive tower. For an estimated £35,000 the building would have incorporated “a great hall, a minor hall and an orchestral hall”.

By now, the news of this civic Battle of Worcester was reaching far and wide and distinguished architect Sir Gilbert Scott entered the fray, writing an open letter to the Town Clerk saying: “I trust the report is untrue that your Corporation are about to destroy the best and most valued building in your city next to the Cathedral. It is a national example of architecture and that of a very characteristic and favourite style and period. Its destruction would bring disgrace on Worcester and give you in all future times a most unenviable reputation.”

This caused a major re-think and despite more hoopla, in 1878 Sir Gilbert Scott was called in to join Henry Rowe in an extensive restoration plan.

Sir Gilbert died before the project began and it was left to Rowe to see it through to completion in 1880 at a cost of £22,623. But that still doesn’t mean Rudimental (big on the drum and bass scene, so I’m told) can play the Assembly Room today.