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When Roy Schofield was at grammar school in Caistor, Lincolnshire, he learned all about the iron age and the stone age – but not one jot about the Romans. Which is surprising since Caistor sits on a Roman road, was a Roman town and the site of a Roman fort.

Though lamenting this gap in the local knowledge, it was not until a few years ago that he learned just how much he was missing after persuading the local retiring primary school head to set up a history group.

"We quickly realised there was so much material that needed collecting we decided we wanted a museum," says Roy, a former local councillor and now chair of Caistor's Village SOS project which was granted Β£435,340 by the Big Lottery Fund to transform an unused chapel building in the centre of the village into an arts an heritage centre and cafe.

Though the heritage had been at the forefront of the project, the business side of the scheme slowly saw it edged out, resulting in one keen member of the team leaving the project. "The local authority, who technically own the freehold of this building, being practical, suggested that museums don't make money and we should have a cafe, and also a library for which they would sub-let the space from us, and pay rent for that," says Roy.

The idea seems sound in a place that unusually these days, couldn't boast a decent cappuccino within nine miles, something that was definitely on the mind of village champion Charlotte Hastings. Though born and brought up in a rural community, Charlotte had spent her working life in a glamorous world, working for the British Fashion Council to organise London Fashion week and for a publisher of glossy, luxury books.

And turning up in rural Caistor was definitely an eye opener. "All the way through the year so many people said I'd really jumped in the deep end," laughs Charlotte. "I only realised in retrospect!"

The attraction of becoming a village champion for her was "working in a setting where who you are means as much as what you're doing. Fashion was really about image and money. I wanted something more human," she says.

"In London it was much more like being a cog in a machine, where you are less able to take the lead; individualism was almost a disadvantage."

However, Charlotte found her London ways – particularly that of working at the frenetic pace demanded in the capital – was a double edged sword. "In Caistor they had the luxury of time, which I'd always been short of, which was lovely. Then on other days I wished that people would work at my pace," she says.

Roy agrees. "In retrospect the fact that she was living and working in London and New York most of her life, to come to a rural community like Caistor was a bit of a shock to her, I think," he says. "She certainly had different ideas. And we have finished up with a wonderful building; it's even better than I anticipated."

The chapel, which had been used as a youth club before being empty for four years, has had its original doors opened, allowing light from its vaulted windows to stream in, has beautiful bespoke fittings in its cafe, and though the museum element itself was lost, now boasts an impressive, easy to follow timeline along one wall for the history enthusiasts.

And Roy says that since the opening of the building – which saw Sarah Beeny at the helm making the frothy coffee, and had to mount three shifts of visitors, such was the demand to view the centre – the business has gone from strength to strength. "We have over 50 volunteers on our books, and the number of new people that are coming forward to help amazes me – it's not quite on a daily basis, but almost," he says.

And he himself has learned new skills. "I tend to be a bit of a reserved person who works in the background, but with a programme like this, I suppose I have had to be out there, meeting the people that come into the building," he says.

Charlotte herself has now left the village, a very emotional moment all round. "I was really struggling in some ways, to let go," she says. "The launch was a really bittersweet day because on the one hand it was a massive recognition of everything we had achieved but on the other hand there was this very obvious letting go. It's like I've given birth to it but now someone else has to bring it up."

Though she's now looking for a new project, she says there are some lessons she will take with her. "It's made me less of a perfectionist and more of a realist. I still have really high goals but I am more accepting of the people I work with," she says. "Learning to work with volunteers, who give as much or as little time as they can, and you can't pull rank – you can't say this is your job, step up – has made me more patient.

"When I took a big personal risk like that it was either going to be do or die – and it's been by far the most rewarding job I've had."