Kingshill House is a vibrant Creative Centre based in the town of Dursley, 20 minutes from Gloucester. As a community-based charity our mission is to curate an interesting, fun, challenging, accessible, and diverse programme for the community focused on creativity, health and well-being.
We welcome all ages, backgrounds and skills and we strive to provide our local community with a space to be creative, get involved and discover new strengths and abilities. We do this through the delivery of workshops, courses, events, exhibitions, and activities which inspire and educate people whilst nurturing collaboration.
The charity has been part of the Dursley community for over 25 years and it is the only building of its size in the area that provides cultural significance. Set in a historic building with a rich history of supporting the community we aim to continue the story and deliver activities for both our local audience and those from further afield. With an excellent track record of creativity and culture, we welcome events of all sizes hosted at the House. We offer room hire and the heritage building is a great location for events, markets, gigs, training and much more. Revenue raised from venue hire supports our exhibitions, events, and education programmes. So, by holding your event at Kingshill House, you’ll not only be choosing a unique historic venue – you’ll be helping us bring our vision to an ever-wider audience and pass the creative beacon to the next generation of creatives. Run by a small team with big, bold ambitions for the future we are driven to dissolve economic and social barriers between audiences and their access to creativity. We do this by making Kingshill House a safe accessible space where anyone can come, be creative, enjoy themselves, relax, take their mind off things, learn and inspire.
More about our programme:
We are champions of creativity for everyone, and we specialise in delivering courses, productions, events, workshops and exhibitions which inspire and educate people on contemporary, traditional and folk art, craft, health and well-being. We welcome all styles, especially those that address contemporary issues and concerns, use traditional materials in unusual ways, explore non-traditional processes, and challenge our community’s point of view. We have a comprehensive programme which includes family-friendly fun activities that are held regularly throughout the year. Families are important to us - getting young people involved in creativity is something that we are passionate about. We aim to dissolve barriers between artists and audiences with our immersive activities where tutors pass on knowledge, allow debate and present alternative views. This enables people to have ownership over their expression, and feel comfortable in a supportive non-judgemental space that encourages learning. We should all have access to that.
Art, creativity, music, theatre are powerful tools and Kingshill House Creative Centre successfully combines health and well-being through activities such as foraging for art, Yoga, Taiji Quan, Qigong, drawing with nature, or courses such as stained glass, ceramics and oil on canvas. The House also hosts many groups and organisations, that benefit from the resources that Kingshill has to offer. We provide a vital link between creativity and the community.
Additionally, there is an abundance of activity at Kingshill House which involves the wider community, and we host many groups and organisations, who benefit from the resources that the stunning Georgian rooms have to offer. This includes the Community Health and Wellbeing team from Stroud District Council, Shine a charity that offers creative art therapy sessions for mums with postnatal depression, Cotswolds Vale Talking Newspaper (CVTN) a weekly talking newspaper for the blind, Dursley Green, a local community for sustainability and many more! We are also proud that one of our external buildings is occupied by CYT a fitness gym servicing the local community.