About The Watershed

So how did it all start?….

Searching for Storage

One day we spotted a small, hand-written ‘For Sale’ notice in the window of an old, semi-derelict building in Slaithwaite….

The place had once been the home of the Colne Valley Guardian newspaper, but more recently was a Worsted wool weaving shed for Linthwaite Textiles before falling into disuse for 10 years or so.

It’s absolutely Bobbins is that…

The Great Clear Out begins

Make or Break

This was too good an opportunity to miss – but three partner organisations had to organise quickly to secure the place.

We helped set up a Charity, Watershed Workshops, and successfully fundraised over £500k (over many years!), bought, refurbished and went on to run the building as a centre for participatory arts.

A Creative Mill

The three founder arts organisations all worked in participatory arts,
became residents, and managed the building on behalf of the Trustees. From the beginning they steered the development of the centre and produced the majority of the community arts programming.

It became a wonderful, fully accessible participatory arts space hosting a wide range of creative workshops and training programmes for people of all ages and abilities – from music to mosaics, filming to felt making, singing to sewing.

engage – participate – play

Looking Forwards....

Now it’s time to look again at what we do and how we do it – to continue creating opportunities for the thousands of people who have come through our doors over the past 20 years – but also attracting many who haven’t found us yet.

We are developing a wider programme of projects and events involving neighbourhoods, co-creators and artists so we can test new ideas, include new voices, challenge, create and inspire us all.