PRESTWICH Art Society bids farewell to its home of 31 years with a Spring exhibition.

After spending the last three decades putting on displays in the exhibition room at Prestwich Library, the art society will be the last group to officially hold an event there before it closes for refurbishment.

The exhibition room and top floor of the library will close for several weeks as it undergoes a redesign.

After the work is completed there will no longer be an exhibition room but Bury Council has promised there will be a designated area within the new development for groups to put on exhibitions.

Chairman of Prestwich Art Society, Peter Roughan, who helped fit out the room for exhibitions all those years ago, said: "We have been told it could be an exhibition corridor and we will be the first put on a display there."

The society was actually founded in 1970 by the Mayoress, Mrs B. Pepperman following an art exhibition by the council held at St Margaret's library and then at the Longfield Centre.

When Prestwich Council was merged with Bury, the art society took over the exhibition in 1973 and has been running at the library ever since.

The exhibition features a range of paintings by society members, including one by Mr Roughan himself.

The painting of the Old Rectory in Prestwich is sure to be a talking point after Mr Roughan combined it with an image of the fish pond.

He said: "I think the rectory is taken from St Mary's Road and the junction of Rectory Lane, from an old print. The fish pond I took from an ordinance survey map of May 1848 -- but I have seen another print with the rectory on the other side of the pond. I think I'll have to paint another picture with the rectory on the reverse side, just to be sure."

The exhibition runs until April 3.