COMBE DOWN ART TRAIL 2025 When: 13th - 14th September 2025, 10 AM - 4 PM Where: Combe Down (see map for boundary)  This year, we’re doing things a little differently! Instead of our usual numbered venue trail, the 2025 event will be a collection of open studios.
Your “studio” can be your house, shed, garage, or even a dedicated art space. If you don’t have a suitable location, consider asking a friend, neighbour, or fellow artist who may be willing to lend you a space for the weekend—such as a conservatory, garage, or garden. We will also have a limited number of spaces available in a few smaller public venues (see below). Who Can Take Part? Artists living or working in Combe Down can open their own studios or join another artist’s space, as long as the venue is within the mapped area. If you’d like to participate but don’t have a venue, let us know—we’ll do our best to accommodate you. Previous Combe Down Art Trail participants (not from Combe Down) are welcome to apply again, but please be aware we have limited public space and priority will be given to local artists. . Hosting another artist? If you have space to share, feel free to invite fellow artists to join you. To ensure all participants are advertised, please let us know who will be exhibiting with you. If you’re open to hosting but need help finding artists to share your space, let us know how many other artists you could host and we can connect you to the artists requiring a space! Public Venues If you’d rather not open your home or studio, we are in the process of securing a few smaller public venues, depending on demand. If you’re interested in exhibiting in a public venue, please let us know. Key Details Fee: £30 per artist Applications open: April 20th, 2025 Deadline to apply: July 24th, 2025 Notification of acceptance: July 31st, 2025 Payment deadline: August 8th, 2025 (To confirm your participation the fee will need to be paid by this date.) We’re so excited to bring art and creativity to the village again!
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 Hello! It’s early in the year, but we’re reaching out to all Combe Down Art Trail artists, visitors, and supporters in search of volunteers to help run the art trail this September, and most specifically for someone who can take on the leadership role.
The Combe Down Art Trail has been a great success for the past eight years, first under the leadership of Jeni Wood and then Sally Jefferies, both of whom have since stepped down from the role. The team of volunteers includes Catherine Beale (press), Ele Nash (website, Instagram), Vikki Yeates (Facebook and miscellaneous), Kathy Pearce (finance), and Hils Strickland (design) as well as others who offer ideas and support. All these roles can be restructured under new leadership. The team is looking for a new leader who can liaise with artists and the wider mailing list for the five months leading up the trail (from April when submissions go live). The things that need doing are: · Taking over the database – this contains the application forms, artist details, venue details. This can be copied onto your own computer · Taking over the email list – this is a gmail account accessed via a password · Taking over the bank account – this is an online NatWest account for art trail fees and expenses · Managing deadlines for printing the maps, posters, and items for the local press. These tasks can be done by one person or potentially shared. You don’t have to be an artist! We really hope the art trail can take place this year, so please do get in touch if you can help with any of these roles by emailing us by Wednesday, March 5th! THANK YOU to everyone who took part and came to our 2024 Combe Down Art Trail over the weekend!! Wasn't it great?! If you missed out, or didn't quite get around to every one of the 23 venues, fear not! Here is a taster of photos from each and every one - thank you Ele Nash for the 15,000 steps it took to complete the trail!
The wealth of artistic talent taking part this year was awe-inspiring. As well as paintings, prints, photography, and ceramics there were wire, stone, and clay sculptures, glasswork, pottery, jewellery, box art, cards, and textiles. Visitors had their portrait photo taken, watched demos of stone carving with Bath Stone Carving Group, admired sculptures by Bath Sculpture School, learned watercolour techniques with Catherine Beale and collage with Karen George. All of that excitement meant the refreshments including lunch at the Peggy Dodd Centre were very welcome! Venues this year were spread throughout the old village, to the new addition of Mulberry Park, and out into the Foxhill estate. Artists could be found at the St Andrew’s Community Centre, the Museum of Bath Stone, and the Peggy Dodd Centre, as well as in their own studios and homes. The street gallery on nursery and school railings and in windows showed off artwork created by Combe Down schoolchildren and toddlers and was an excellent addition as always! The art trail relies on a lot of volunteers so thank you Vikki Yeates, Catherine Beale, and Kathy Pearce for helping to keep everything running as smoothly as it should, to Hilary Strickland for the beautiful posters and map, and to Ele for the walk, website, and our Instagram 😊 And a final very special thank you to Queen Organiser, Sally Jefferies, who has been in the role of herding artistic cats for the past six years. This was her final one as chief and we can all agree it was the best yet!
As well as paintings, prints, photography and ceramics there are sculptures, wire and wooden animals, pottery, jewellery, box art and textiles. This year visitors can have a portrait photo taken, watch demos of stone carving with Bath Stone Carving Group, and sculptures with Bath Sculpture School, watercolour technique with Catherine Beale and collage with Karen George. You can also enjoy refreshments including lunch at the Peggy Dodd Centre.
There are venues throughout the village, with artists at the St Andrew’s Community Centre, the Museum of Bath Stone, and the Peggy Dodd Centre, as well as in their own studios and homes in the village. The street gallery on railings and in windows shows off artwork created by Combe Down schoolchildren and toddlers. Combe Down Art Trail aims to encourage art across our community and to do as much as possible to protect the environment by reusing and recycling the red and green lanterns, venue numbers and arrows along the route. The Combe Down Art Trail website is currently being updated (thank you Ele Nash!) and will soon have all the details here including the brochure and art trail map (thank you Hilary Strickland for the beautiful design work, including the image here!) The art trail relies on a lot of volunteers so thank you too to Sally Jefferies for tirelessly organising the event, and to Vikki Yeates Catherine Beale, and Kathy Pearce for helping to keep everything running as smoothly as it should 😊
Please follow the link to our submissions page for more information and how to apply. The closing date for submissions is Sunday 30th June. Any questions, feel free to drop us a line via email [email protected].
We look forward to hearing from you!
Please go to the BOS website for more information and for the submission form if you would like to enter. Submissions close 14th June.
Don't forget, May and June are packed with other Bath art trails and open studios! Larkhall: 4th - 6th May, Newbridge: 18th - 19th May, Bear Flat: 25th - 27th May, and Widcombe: 22nd - 23rd June! Keep a look out too for information coming soon about our own Combe Down Art Trail on 7th and 8th September!
Bath Open Studios"Bath Open Studios (BOS) is delighted to be exhibiting artwork at the RUH, in support of Art at the Heart. On show is a lively and eclectic mix of paintings, prints, photographs, ceramics, sculpture, and mosaic by talented artists across our great city. BOS is a voluntarily run group representing seven art trails and open studios that take place annually in seven areas of Bath: Bath Artists’ Studios Batheaston Art Trail Bear Flat Open Studios Combe Down Art Trail Larkhall Open Studios Newbridge Arts Trail Widcombe Art Trail Bringing together many of the established and emerging artists who take part and organise these community events in one exhibition is a fantastic opportunity to shine a spotlight on their work, as well as on the trails themselves. Find us on Instagram @bathopenstudios or head over to our website bathopenstudios.co.uk for more information about any of the art trails and open studios, and the artists involved." Artists taking part from Combe DownPaul Wilkins Catherine Beale Linda O’Gorman John Simpson Penny Richards Kathy Pearce Sally Jefferies Josie Bahar Wenda Bartlett Robert Lee Pat Betts Richard Ford Rosemary Simmons Apoorva Raghav Ele Nash The exhibition runs from now until mid-January 2024.
Thank you to everyone who came to our 2023 Combe Down Art Trail on Saturday 9th - Sunday 10th September, 10am - 4pm! And to all the children who created our fabulous street galleries, and to the artists who opened their studio doors and joined in venues to showcase their glasswork, ceramics, craft, paintings, prints, jewellery, photography, and sculpture. It was amazing - even if the weather was a bit hot! Here is what happened... See you again in September 2024!!
 There's just four weeks to go before the 2023 Combe Down Art Trail! The map of venues and list of artists is now printed, with 34 artists taking part in 22 venues, including 7 street galleries where children's posters - from nurseries, toddler groups and primary schools - will be hung on the railings around the village. This is our most inclusive art trail yet, including art at the Peggy Dodd Centre where the oldest client is 103! Artists' posters too will be hung on railings as part of the vibrant street scene. As well as including more artists than ever, we also have the largest artwork in the history of our art trail! Noah's Rainbow, made by Rosemary Simmons, is created from recycled hot-air balloon fabric, with each panel measuring a whopping 2.7 x 1.5 metres! The artwork represents the rainbow that Noah saw after the Great Flood and which he understood to mean that better times will come. Artwork in our community reflects this optimism as well as the joy of creating all the paintings, prints, sculptures, ceramics, jewellery, textiles and photographs that you will find on the trail. In addition, we're delighted that one of artists and hard-working team volunteers, Catherine Beale, has a book out titled "Capturing Light'. In Catherine's words: "It is my guide to creating radiant landscapes and, as part of Search Press' Innovative Artist series, taking a very personal look at how I like to push the boundaries of watercolour methods and materials. Its 500 colour illustrations include many of my recent landscapes, over 176 imaginative pages." Published by Search Press, it is available to buy through them, as well as in bookshops, and many online retailers such as SAA, Artcoe, WHSmith, Bookshop, and Amazon. Congratulations Catherine! "Capturing Light is a must for artists who wish to investigate the subtle qualities of light with an emphasis on creating dramatic, imaginative landscapes." We will start hanging the street gallery artwork from Tuesday 5th September - on railings outside the schools, churches and nurseries and on walls. The venues themselves will be open during the art trail weekend Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th September, 10am - 4pm. 
Introducing this year's map and venues list, beautifully updated this year by artist, Hilary Strickland - thank you, Hils! With 22 venues, including seven street gallery venues, our 2023 art trail really captures the spirit of our creative village. Taking place on Saturday 9th - Sunday 10th September, 10am - 4pm, make a note in your diary. It's not to be missed!
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