Bringing Kingswood’s Tabernacle back to life

The Tabernacle was one of the first Methodist meeting houses in the world, originally built in 1741 and used for education within the community.

Recognising its history, the vision is to provide a unique and flexible meeting space that will bring something new to Kingswood: a destination venue for a wide range of arts, drama, performance arts and educational programmes within a building that also includes a permanent exhibition that explains its historical significance and provides a space for people to meet and use. It will be complementary to other provision in the area, and whilst remaining strongly connected to the Kingswood community it will attract interest and support from people ‘round the corner and round the world’.

Work began on the building in 2020 and the first phase of work is now complete with the building fully stabilised, a brand-new roof, new windows installed and internal pillars restored.

The outside of the building is now finished and the next phase of work to restore and decorate the inside of the building will start soon. We expect to be open in early 2026, and we are working with community arts, drama, education and history groups to prepare an exciting programme of .