Darlington's Arts Centre, boastfully described as the largest in the country, was formally opened on April 10, 1982, by US jazz singer Marion Montgomery.

"For a town of 100,000 people, it seems astonishing to have an arts centre bigger, in range of participation plus spectator events, than London's Barbican Centre, " said an Echo reporter, previewing the opening and looking at the enormous array of subsidised arty classes.

"Some Darlington people still have outside toilets.

Doesn't that priority come before pewtersmithing?"

The difficulty in striking this balance has characterised the centre's 33-year life and explains why, in a time of retrenchment, it is the first of the town's cultural facilities to close.

The idea of creating an arts centre had been floating in the Sixties, but it wasn't until the midSeventies that a potential home became available.

It was the British and Foreign Schools Society North of England College for the Training of Mistresses for Elementary Schools - possibly the longest title of any institution in the world - in Vane Terrace.

It was built in 1876 by James Pigott Pritchett, one of the leading ecclesiastical architects of his day, responsible for St Nicholas' Church, in Durham City market place, and the currently controversial St Laurence's, in Middleton St George.

The training college was funded by the town's Quakers and teachers continued to train there, with many of them holding their first lessons in the practising school at the rear, until summer 1978.

When the council took over the lease, the building was not regarded as suitable for an arts centre. Even its supporters described it as "restrictive and awkward".

It was a rabbit warren of 140 small rooms, and situated in the "leafy" west end, it was in the wrong place to take art to the masses.

Its first events were held in autumn 1979 with "resident craftsmen" offering music and craft courses.

Over the next couple of years, more than £400,000 was spent converting it.

About half the money came from the council, with grants from the Arts Council, Northern Arts, the British Film Institute and the English Tourist Board trying to make up the gap.

The centre had the misfortune to be born in an age of cost-cuts - in 1980, when Darlington council lost £1m from its budget - and it regularly featured in headlines which also contained the words "cash crisis".

It was initially set up as a charitable trust but, in late 1981, all eight trustees resigned over its large debts.

The council took full control and, following the appointment of Peter Bevan as director in 1984, the birth pangs subsided.

Indeed, the centre, which always seems surprisingly well-used, has found a valued place in Darlington's cultural heart with a clear identity about what it does.

Despite a £1m refit in 2007, doubts persisted about the building's suitability.

Those doubts will now centre on whether or not the council will get round to building a new performance venue once the old arts centre has gone, and whether the strange, leaf-clogged nodding water feature outside the front should move to the new site.