LAST week we looked back at the Bedern Hall story. Once home to the vicars choral, those clergymen who learned by heart all that was sung in the Church, it is a priceless part of York's history.

Yet the hall came close to being torn down. Today its plot could so easily be taken by modern housing, every trace of the 14th century erased.

The fact the hall is still here, and restored to glory, is largely thanks to David Green.

It came close to disappearing, he explained, because you could not see it. For many years Bedern Hall was surrounded by other buildings.

A history of the hall, published in 1987, explains how this happened. Bedern was a slum in the mid-1800s: "The Irish population had increased from seven in 1841 to 1,130 in 1851, and the Bedern was then described as a 'sad spectacle of poverty and wretchedness'...

"The Bedern National School was built in 1873 over much of the south-west side of Bedern, necessitating the extensive demolition of many of the remaining vicars choral college buildings."

By 1918 the hall was owned by the Barton bakery and after extensive alterations, including the insertion of vehicle and pedestrian doors, it was used as a coach house with a joiner's workshop and flour store on the first floor. The company went on to buy more buildings on the site, before selling them and the hall to William Wright, Pork Butchers in 1953.

By then Bedern Hall was out of sight, out of mind: the medieval building was largely forgotten.

But not by Mr Green. A series of events combined to ensure he was in the right place at the right time to head off its demolition.

The first, and key event, happened when he was six. Mr Green's father was clerk to the works at the Minster.

"I used to spend all my time at the Minster stoneworks. That's where my holidays were spent, playing in the drawing offices and with the masons and glaziers.

"One day my father took me into Barton's the bakers, up some stairs, through some offices and we finished up in this half-timbered building," he recalled.

It was his first glimpse of the real Bedern Hall.

Many years went by, in which Mr Green trained as an architect and found a job in Leeds, before he returned to his home city for a job administering grants for historic buildings.

"I was going through all the lists and noticed that Bedern Hall wasn't on," he said.

The hall and other buildings had been bought from Wright butchers by the council in 1971. Big plans were afoot to implement Lord Esher's vision of a revitalised York city centre, and Bedern was earmarked for new housing.

All the offices and workshops were due to be flattened, and the forgotten Bedern Hall flattened with them.

Mr Green went to reinspect the hall. "It was absolutely derelict," he said.

However, with perfect timing he was promoted to become the analysis architect of historic buildings "and I dragged Bedern Hall along with me". He persuaded the council that the medieval hall must be saved.

The less important buildings surrounding it were knocked down in 1975 exposing the hall for the first time in centuries. Historians believe the building had been repaired only up until the 1500s; the neglect showed.

"It was terrible," said Mr Green. Clearly it would cost an arm and a leg to rebuild. The budget was set at £139,127.

But there was a large Department of the Environment grant reserved for housing on the site, and Mr Green successfully lobbied for it to be released for the restoration project. And York council chipped in too.

Work finally got underway in 1979. It was a team effort, involving the City Architect and many skilled craftsmen.

Bedern Hall was in such a state that recreating it accurately was difficult. To decide where to put doors and windows, the team used a combination of historians' plans and educated guesswork based on a careful examination of the building.

Restoration rules at the time stated that all modern repairs had to be visible, not simple copies of the remaining original features. That explains why so much brickwork was used.

After a lot of careful, skilled, hard work, Bedern Hall was restored. The project cost £126,645, nearly £12,500 under budget. York taxpayers contributed only £16,662 towards bringing back Bedern Hall - one of the bargains of the decade.

As the 1987 history put it: "With the restoration of the hall in 1979-80 one of York's unique buildings has been saved from demolition.

"This was the culmination of seven years' hard battling for its retention by the city of York Architects' Department, who were able, both efficiently and quickly, to provide an accurate survey and working drawings for its restoration."

Now it was finished one question remained. What should be done with it?

In 1980 the Company of Butchers, the Company of Cordwainers, the Gild of Freemen and the York Guild of Building formed a steering group to investigate the possibility of using it as a gild hall.

The Company of Butchers dropped out, but the three remaining gilds pursued the idea. They formed the Bedern Hall Company and raised enough money to build an extension to the hall.

And today regular events take place here, the place where once 36 singing Minster vicars used to sleep, eat - and, it turns out, fight.

Ecclesiastical court records tell the story of Boxing Day, 1419, in Bedern Hall. Two of the vicars choral were sitting by the fire. Robert Ripon thought John of Middleton was about to hit him with a poker, so he threw him on the iron frame holding the kettle over the fire. Ripon was fined 3s 4d and Middleton 20d.

Just one story from a fascinating corner of York's past.

"It's my favourite little building," said Mr Green, 72. "I restored the Assembly Rooms later on, but everyone knew about it.

"This was a different thing. Being brought up at the Minster, it was sort of connected to the Minster - and Bedern Hall could have gone."

The new book by Richard Hall, Bedern Hall And The Vicars Choral Of York Minster, costs £3.95. Copies can be purchased from the Hall or by telephoning (01904) 646030

Updated: 09:01 Monday, May 17, 2004