Shambellie House has become a creative arts centre for arts, heritage and environmental courses, workshops and events.
Shambellie House will offer workshops and courses delivered by experienced tutors on a range of creative topics, be it arts, heritage or environmental. All courses benefit from the wonderful location and Shambellie’s retreat-like nature, with stunning views and glorious grounds and an abundance of flora and fauna which can’t fail to inspire.
DGWGO went along to meet General Manager, Sue Hughes to find out more.
Sue told DGWGO “So the Shembellie House Trust was set up and raised funds to be able to do work on the house so that it could open again to the local community and to visitors from further afield. We are going to be running heritage arts and well-being courses here. We’ve got pilot programs, and then long term, we’ll have taster sessions for people to just come for an hour and we’ll mix and match as we develop.”
“Our first open day actually was last Sunday and that was for the public, for the community to come back into the house. We really want the community to engage with the house. ”
Woodland Sprite Trail
“Our next event is on the 16th of April which is a family friendly event and it’s a Woodland Sprite Trail so you can bring your children along.”They can find the Sprites around the site and come back to make lanterns and obviously, it’s an opportunity for the adults to come in, have a look around and have tea and coffee and cake.
‘We still want to celebrate the Stewart family’
“So Charles Stewart gave his costume collection to this site and the Museum of Costume actually closed in 2013 and the costume went back to Edinburgh but we still want to celebrate the Stuart family and particularly Charles Stewart who was an illustrator.”
Landscape Plan
We have a wonderful partnership with an organisation called Cloverglen who look after vulnerable people with disabilities and part of the work with us is to maintain the grounds. So they’re going to be looking after the grounds for us.
We’ve also just in the middle of a landscape management plan and that will put pathways and things in but also information about the trees. We’ve got ancient woodlands here. There are very little ancient woodlands in Dumfries and Galloway. So we want people the local people to be able to come and have a walk round the grounds as they’ve always done.
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