Here’s a date for your diary… Saturday 19th April sees the return of the Tithebarn Workshops Spring Fling…
Another slice of seasonal fun at the Tithebarn Workshops! The Spring Fling is our first annual event on the calendar and promises to be a day of fun and festivities. As well as all the Workshops and our cafe being open, there will be a collection of art and craft stalls in our beautiful garden. We will have live music for your entertainment and a bar and food stand for you to enjoy.
Come and start spring off with us and have a great day out!
On our walk down to the gallery this morning we spotted this hungry heron sitting on the Lock Inn’s canal boat, outdoor dining… not sure that he wasn’t a bit too early for a Boatmans!
That was a close one! Our thoughts here at the Tithebarn Workshops are with those hit by the latest floods in Town. We just got away with it here this time.
We had water approaching from the front and the back of the units, a full pincer movement!:
Nature is remarkable though, as within days of the water subsiding spring started to pop up in the shape of first snowdrops:
Can we please now have some nice dry weather!
Everything down at Barton Farm is open and later today will be accessible from all directions again, as Barton Bridge and the River Walk will soon be reappearing!
A very Happy New Year to all our customers and friends!
I must say it nice not to start off the year with a flood report… even though it was looking dodgy a few days ago! This year we are starting to get our new stock in early at the gallery, ready for a busy season ahead.
Here are a few of our latest Paua Shell earring designs for 2025. We are holding the price at just £12 a pair and they come in a delightful presentation box too.
Yes I had to Google it! It means ‘through difficulty to heights’ and is a frequently used Latin phrase apparently! We just thought it summed up our 2024 quite well… It’s been a bit of a year!
Why not start the year with a little bit of light flooding?! Not the best way to start 2024 but it only came into the gallery up to about our ankles so we were able to get up and running again quickly. It is always a quiet time of year at the Tithebarn Workshops, so it could have been worse!!
Feburary saw Serena working hard towards Bath Art Fair with lots of paintings being done. It was our second visit to the Fair at the amazing Bath Pavilion, after a very successful 2023 event. We had a great reaction to the latest work and also a few sales, which is always nice.
March saw the final stages of the huge Wessex Water project at the top of Pound Lane. Sinking an enormous 160,000 litre tank to give additional storage for storm water… well that was the plan! This job caused a lot of disruption to the businesses at Barton Farm in the early part of the year and had a detrimental impact on the Lions Day in 2024.
April saw a set back to our new years plans to get fit and walk to work every day! Serena went and fell over, breaking her ankle. This was in the middle of preparation for our next art fair. Exercise isn’t always good for you!
Despite anklegate… we made it Rochester Art Fair in May and it was really interesting to travel away from our area of the country and guage peoples reaction to Serena’s latest work. Being upstairs didn’t make things easy for the prospective buyers (or Serena on crutches!) but again the work was very well received and sales were made.
June was a quiet month with time to relax a bit before the summer season really got going. Sitting outside our beautiful gallery with smell of the roses all around.
2024 saw some absolutely cracking events at the Tithebarn Workshops, including our Summer Fayre in July. Music, food, art and lots of lots of fun for the whole family. These events have been hugely entertaining and great fun to put on… 2025 will see more!
It may not seem much in the great scheme of things, but when we got our new signs at the top of Pound Lane it marked a big moment for the Barton Farm area. We had been putting out temporary signs for over 14 years and now everybody knew where we were! Thank you to the Town Council for their help with this.
And on the subject of signage… our rebranding was completed with some stunning structures put up by Felix Byrne. Even the local cat seemed impressed!
The Bradford on Avon Pumpkin Trail was handed over to us at the Workshops in October and SerenArts Gallery became Pumpkin Trail HQ. Over 35 businesses took part this year and the Ex-Libris book token prizes went down very well.
Told you there’d be more of this! November saw the worst flooding we’ve ever had during our time here, surpassing the awful floods of 2013. The levels went as high as 3.51m and although that was only 9cm more than 2013, the difference was significant. We were down here at 4am getting everything lifted and ready, but this surprised us with the speed and levels it got to. A lot of cleaning to be done and once everything dries out properly we will have to replace some flooring and walls. We were luckier than many other businesses hit in Bradford… at least our gallery is a cow shed and kind of built for this sort of problem. Hopefully this wake up call will be enough for developers and coucillors to see sense and not build on any flood plains in and around the town.
December has been a lovely month with the Christmas bikes and lights up around the workshops (thank you Katie and her team at Burbidge Electrical) and the hugely successful late night shopping event we held. Pop up shops within each studio, mulled cider, mince pies, music and a whole lot of festive support from locals for us all down here. It was so nice to get the backing of community after a difficult time.
There have been up and downs in 2024 but we are a resilient lot down at the Workshops and you’re always guaranteed a smile here. We look forward to seeing you all again in 2025 and thank you to every one who visited and supported us all this year.
Merry Christmas and a very happy and prosperous new year.
Well, that was a nice surprise… the lovely Hilary came into our gallery this morning with a goodie bag from the Bradford on Avon Lions. They had decided that the places that got hit badly by the recent floods deserved a bit of cheering up!
The Lions do such amazing work in the town and it was so nice to have their support and to know they were thinking of us all down here at the Tithebarn Workshops.
Our Workshops freshening up project progressed another step this week, as the entrance sign was replaced and updated by Felix…
With the individually painted studios and lovely new signage, it’s a lot more welcoming for visitors. More improvements and updates will follow in the months to come and we will keep you informed.
We wanted to also take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to the lovely locals of Bradford on Avon for their amazing support (both emotional and financial) during and after the floods last week. You’re amazing and we truly appreciate your continued custom.
You will probably have seen quite a few posts and news items following this weeks awful flooding in Bradford on Avon. Well… here’s another one!
Our beautiful little corner of the Town always gets it quite badly, but this one was quite excepitional. We were at the Tithebarn Workshops in 2013, when the measuring station hit 3.42m and we were badly flooded. This time, although it was only 9cm more at 3.51m, did it ever make a difference. Unit 8 here and two neighbouring houses all flooded for the first time, with the water reaching areas that we’d never seen before. Having moved all our stock and goodies up to our usual flood level, we had to then wade back in and move everything up further still.
Screenshot
We have become quite good at second guessing the river levels over the years, but this one took us all by surprise. We set our alarm for 3.30am and it wasn’t looking good, so down we came.
Already at the Workshops and helping out was the truly amazing Danny, one of the town flood wardens and all round superhero! We can’t thank him and his team of volunteers enough for their continued help, advice and input before, during and after this rubbish time.
Having spent a day and half cleaning, spraying and disinfecting we are fully open again and busy with Christmas card printing, commission painting and stocking the shelves ready for Christmas shoppers and our late night Friday.
Tomorrow should have been the Christmas light switch on in town which we were going to be part of, but it had to be cancelled due to the flooding. However, we at the Tithebarn Workshops are going ahead with our day / evening of celebrations, despite everything! We have pop up shops in each studio, a food truck and bar, live music and lots of free mulled wine and cider and mince pies!
Please pop down and join us if you can… we’re all up for a fun day… but don’t try and get over Barton Bridge!
It’s that time of year again and the Tithebarn Workshops team are joining in the Town fun for the Christmas Light Switch on the evening of Friday 29th November.
Our studios will be open right through the day and into the evening, until 8pm (or maybe a little earlier if the free mulled wine and cider runs out!). As well as the resident artists and creative people we have at the Workshops, there will be pop-up sections within each studio for local creative people to take part and sell their goodies to the public. A great opportunity for some Christmas Shopping.
We have two live music acts performing: Sounding it Out – 5.30pm to 6pm (a local community choir) Dr Zebo’s Wheezy Club – 6pm to 6.45pm (an acoustic trio putting a new spin on the folk tradition)
SerenArts Gallery 