A 400-YEAR-OLD coach house and stable block could soon become a restaurant and hub for craft businesses in a major restoration project.

The structure in the grounds of the Grade I-listed Turton Tower has lain neglected and disused for many years.

A Save Our Stables campaign was launched by trustees and volunteers at the end of 2015 and a £10,000 start-up grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to prepare a business plan for restoring it.

Now, the committee is almost ready to submit a bid for another £100,000 to produce more extensive plans and drawings before applying for around £1.8million.

The vision at the moment is for the building to be transformed into a upmarket cafe and offices for mainly craft businesses to use.

The money is also set to contribute to making improvements to the tower itself such as improving disabled access on the ground floor and upgrading the gardens.

Leader of the campaign Cllr Jean Rigby, North Turton with Tockholes representative, said she was positive about the project going forward.

She said: “We hope to submit another bid for £100,000 in July before applying for the full amount at the back end of the year.

“The building has so much potential and the project so far has been going really well.

“I’ve worked on this for about seven years privately and I am really positive we have a good chance at getting this funding.

“We have had brilliant support from the public and we have some great council officers working on it.”

It is hoped that if the bidding process is successful the project would be finished in around two years time.

There are also plans to make it a small wedding venue.

Built as a cow barn in the 1600s, the building was updated in the 1800s with some original features remaining including a stone fireplace, the shire-horse stalls and a manger.

Cllr Rigby said: “The building is a very important asset and I think will help to improve the amount of visitors.”