9 UK creative retreats for craftspeople

23 June 2021

Hone your skills while holidaying in idyllic settings

23 June 2021

The Craftsman Cottage in Semley, Wiltshire

Location: Wiltshire
Craft: Various crafts including bookbinding, pottery and woodworking
Prices: From £800-960. All single and double occupancy packages are based on two nights and includes tuition, materials, food and accommodation

The owner (and self-professed ‘craft obsessive’) of this 19th-century cottage, Amanda Bannister, encourages guests to gain hands-on craft experience through series of courses. The area around Semley is a major destination for art and craft too – Hauser & Wirth’s craft gallery Make, Messums Wiltshire, and the New Sculpture Park are all within 30 minutes drive of the property.

Sea kayak building workshop. Courtesy: Archipelago Folk School
Paddle-making workshop. Courtesy: Archipelago Folk School

Archipelago Folk School

Location: All over Scotland, mostly on the west coast
Craft: Boat building, blacksmithing and more
Prices: Between £1,000 and £1,500 for a week, include tuition, accommodation, food and materials

The Archipelago Folk School emerged out of a Glasgow charity, and now operates on the Isles of Mull and Iona. Its expanded programme for 2019 offers courses in everything from spoon-carving to kayak-building, and includes women-only sessions. Accommodation ranges from an eco-farm and homestays to campsites, bothies and luxury yurts.

Xenia Creative Retreat

Location: North Hampshire
Craft: Residencies for all disciplines
Prices: Free self-catering accommodation

Aimed at creatives in visual arts as well as the spheres of literature, music and performance, the Xenia retreat in North Hampsire is a bucolic escape for those in search of solitude to pursue their endeavours. Guests are encouraged to stay between two weeks and two months and the retreat offers a gallery space where artists can exhibit the works they’ve made during their stay. Past residents include sculptor Emma Witter, who works with animal bones, and ceramicist Christopher Riggio.

Woodland Skills Centre

Location: Clwydian Range, Wales
Craft: Basket making, willow work, coppice craft
Prices: £60 for one-day course of making rush baskets to £300 for five days of timber-frame building, including free camping

Learn traditional crafts among 50 acres of woodland. Work with willow, make baskets out of hazel and ash splint, shape three-legged stools out of green wood or hone your survival skills with courses in traditional bushcraft.

Scottish Sculpture Workshop

Location: Aberdeenshire
Craft: Blacksmithing, iron casting, bronze casting, ceramics and raku
Prices: From £100 for a weekend

These open access rural workshops have been running for over four decades. Bronze casting classes use ancient methods and natural materials such as beeswax, clay, sand and horse manure, while iron casting workshops cover how to operate a furnace and prepare materials as well as finishing, polishing and cutting.

Vinegar Hill Pottery
Vinegar Hill Pottery

Vinegar Hill Pottery

Location: Milford on Sea
Craft: Pottery
Prices: From £125 for a one-day pottery course, excluding accommodation

This pottery and B&B is very much a family affair: Lucy Rogers oversees the day-to-day running of this three-room property while her husband and master potter Dave leads workshops for budding ceramicists. Pottery courses are open to residents and non-residents alike, and you can pick your accommodation from the spacious Garden Room, the secluded Hayloft, or Rosie – an artfully restored 19th-century showman’s wagon for the especially adventurous.

Bothy Project

Location: Across Scotland
Craft: Residencies for all disciplines
Prices: Contact for application and residency details

Live and work off the grid in one of a network of architect-designed cabins inspired by traditional bothies. Artists can apply to stay there on a self-funded basis or institutions and organisations can support someone to do so, with the participants encouraged to share their experiences via a blog post and through workshops, events or open studios aimed at the local community.

Temple, by Sandy Brown, installation view at Chatsworth House. Photo: Simon Broadhead

Sandy Brown Arts

Location: Devon
Craft: Ceramics and sculpture
Prices: £795 for six days, excluding accommodation

Ceramicist Sandy Brown runs a six-day course centred on the notion of play in which participants are encouraged to make instinctively, spontaneously and intuitively, though painting, claywork, conversation and occasional trips to the beach. Courses are non-residential, with the attendees normally staying at local B&Bs.

Tiny Home Holidays
Tiny Home Holidays

Tiny Home Holidays

Location: Isle of Wight
Craft: Various crafts including macrame, bookbinding and jewellery making
Prices: From £25-75 for workshops, accommodation from £110-120 per night

Glamping meets craft in this boutique retreat village of architect-designed, eco-friendly homes. A multi-purpose hub (complete with a wood-burning stove) provides as a relaxing and homely space where you can join in on everything from craft workshops and writers’ talks to cooking demos and yoga classes.

9 UK creative retreats for craftspeople

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