Our Future

Bringing the building back to life for arts, education, history and community.

Recognising its history as a meeting house and school room, the vision is to provide a unique and flexible space that will bring something new to Kingswood: a destination venue for a wide range of arts, drama, performing arts, and educational programme. The building will include a permanent exhibition that explains its historical significance and will provide a space for people to meet and use. It will complement to other amenities and businesses in the area, and whilst remaining strongly connected to the Kingswood community it will attract interest and support from people ‘around the corner and around the world’. 

The main priority is to provide an attractive space that people will want to visit and spend time in. This will require appropriate catering and toilet facilities to support an accessible exhibition and open space. The establishment of an attractive café to attract people to the building during the day and support activities in the evening is also seen as a key element in the design.

We envisage a predominantly community-based and educational range of activities during the day, pivoting to more use as a performance or hireable venue in the evenings.

At this stage of the development, we do not know what activities will succeed in The Tabernacle. We are currently working with arts and community professional bodies although we do expect that the future programme of use will develop over time. We aim to provide a flexible space with facilities for a range of uses.  

When will it be open?

Building work began on the building in 2020 and now the first phase of work is complete with the building stabilised, a brand new roof and windows and restored internal columns. The outside is now fully restored and the next phase of work inside the building will start soon with the plan to open in early 2025. 

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