Arctic Monkeys among bands to have recorded at Chapel Studios

In a quiet Lincolnshire village lies a quaint Victorian chapel. Worshipers have long departed, but musical notes still resonate off these brick walls courtesy of some of Britain’s best-known artists.

Hymns have been replaced by rock and the congregation includes the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, Wet Wet Wet and The Darkness.

“When Kaiser Chiefs were here, what you could hear coming out of the studio, you knew that was a hit,” says Andy Dransfield, owner of Chapel Studios in South Thoresby.

It is a residential studio, meaning artists can stay there and work for weeks at a time.

And, as Andy explains, one of the most appealing things is its rural location, which means that famous artists can get away from the public spotlight.

“If you are Wet Wet Wet, you can come up here… it’s only when the postman spotted flight cases out on the road being dropped off with ‘Wet Wet Wet’ stuck all over them that it got leaked out,” he says.

“They could go to the local pub and half of the people in the pub wouldn’t know who they are… [they can] go and have a conversation with guys who are driving a tractor all day. They love that!”

What started out as a dream for Andy, recording music with his friends in a garden shed more than 50 years ago, has been a labour of love since.

“We managed to end up with a recorder that had four tracks on it that let you record and sing,” he remembers.

The shed was so small, that one of the friends would sit outside with headphones to record the group playing inside.

“We started to promote our demos that we’d done ourselves and then other local bands said ‘would you record us?’ So we did that initially, and then we thought, ‘hang on a minute, we can charge them a bit of money here’,” David adds.

“Slight drawback was that we were next to an old people’s home. They used to go to bed at nine o’clock just as we were getting going.

“We couldn’t afford soundproof air conditioning, so you can imagine, you get six, seven young guys in there and a lot of people smoked in those days.”

That all changed when Andy’s friend, Bram Tchaikovsky, who was also a musician, bought the chapel with his wife. He suggested that they renovate it and turn it into a recording studio.

“It was exactly as a chapel and that would be very early 1980, maybe even late 79.

“We were really naïve. We got six cubic meters of concrete delivered at the front door. The guy pulls up in his lorry and says ‘where’s this for?’ and we said ‘oh, here please!’ He drops it all and then he says ‘you know this goes off in like an hour and a half don’t you?’

“We had two wheelbarrows, we were just frantic. We were not builders so moving barrows of cement one after the other is pretty tiring.”

Once the studio was built and ready in 1982, big names soon followed.

One of the first that Andy remembers was Simple Minds.

“[They] were actually my favourite band at the time. And that was fantastic. I mean, just having Simple Minds, they were just at the point where Mel Gaynor was joining them.”

The Darkness are also among the big names to have recorded at the chapel, with a chunk of their debut album Permission To Land, which was released in 2003, produced here.

“Justin [Hawkins], obviously, is renowned for his escapades, shall we say,” Andy smiles.

“We had TV crews here for that. So, the first question was ‘so is it true that Justin sang some of the songs naked?’

“We wouldn’t commit for years whether he did or not. I think our phrase was, ‘we turned away at that point, we weren’t looking too closely’.

“But the answer to that is yes, I believe he did.”

Andy was able to buy his friend out in 1986, owning the studio and cottage outright, but he is now ready to sell it, as “it needs young blood”.

“I’m really proud of what we’ve done,” he says.

“You’re just a custodian of a property really, aren’t you? I’m happy for somebody else to put their mark on it.”

It is on the market for £1.25m.