Free, drop in workshop suitable for all ages - do come and join us!

Meet Saori weaver Nicola Builder and Periscope artists Emily Joy and Alison Cockcroft and co-weave a collaborative cloth using natural materials collected from the local landscape. The cloth will be sewn into simple tunics that will be worn as part of the participatory Wild Dress installation at Hawkwood, for their May Day celebration on 6 May.

Wild Dress is an immersive sonic work that explores wilderness, landscape and our place within it. Project created by Kate Fletcher, immersive sound designer Carolyn Downing and director/dramaturg Zoe Svendsen (Metis).

By popular request! Make a Suffolk-puff button brooch inspired by the brooches and decorative domestic items in ‘Making Sense of our Lives’. You may also have time to make a folded flower petal brooch too.

Part of our ‘Museum in Stiches’ series of explorations in stitch of the Museum and Walled Garden, with each themed workshop inspired by different display rooms or the garden, and a variety of textile skills. Suitable for adults (18+) with some experience of sewing or crafting. All materials and tea/coffee are provided in these relaxed and friendly sessions. Our tutor is Sue McNamara, an experienced and enthusiastic ‘maker and mender’ and textile tutor.

Times: 10.30am - 12.30pm

Cost: £20 (£15 MIP Members).

Only 10 places so advance booking essential.

Book online here or call 01453 763394.

Come and meet Stroud Buzz Club in the Garden Pavilion and find out what’s happening in the Walled Garden and wider park - see what’s blooming or buzzing, and enjoy signs of Spring! This time, we’ll meet Ron Rock from the Bumblebee Conservation Society and learn about the solitary Red Mason Bee. We may even make a bee hotel! There will also be hot and cold drinks, and delicious cakes from Miss Daisy to enjoy. Come along, or if you’d like further details and to join the Buzz Club mailing list contact Peter Lead. Admission free, donations welcome, refreshments for sale … we hope you can join us!

Join artist Alison Cockcroft to collage colourful birds using beautiful decorated papers. Turn your bird into a cut-out with flapping wings or make a pecking paper woodpecker toy. Creative fun for families with children aged 5+.

£1 per child suggested donation (pay on the door).

Workshop times: 11am to 3pm (drop in)

Workshop dates: Tuesday 2, Wednesday 3 & Thursday 4 April

Get up close with some of real gems and minerals. Trying panning for ‘gold’ and open a geode to reveal the sparkles. Create a gemstone suncatcher and create some colourful gemstone artwork. Explore the museum to see how rocks and minerals have been used by people in the past with our themed trail and take away some activity ideas to do at home.

A relaxed session for families with children over 5 years old.

Booking required - book online here or call 01453 763394.

Cost: £7 per child, or £5 per child for Museum in the Park Members.

Join artist Alison Cockcroft to collage colourful birds using beautiful decorated papers. Turn your bird into a cut-out with flapping wings or make a pecking paper woodpecker toy. Creative fun for families with children aged 5+.

£1 per child suggested donation (pay on the door).

Workshop times: 11am to 3pm (drop in)

Workshop dates: Tuesday 2, Wednesday 3 & Thursday 4 April

Get up close with some of real gems and minerals. Trying panning for ‘gold’ and open a geode to reveal the sparkles. Create a gemstone suncatcher and create some colourful gemstone artwork. Explore the museum to see how rocks and minerals have been used by people in the past with our themed trail and take away some activity ideas to do at home.

A relaxed session for families with children over 5 years old.

Booking required - book online here or call 01453 763394.

Cost: £7 per child, or £5 per child for Museum in the Park Members.

 Join artist Alison Cockcroft to collage colourful birds using beautiful decorated papers. Turn your bird into a cut-out with flapping wings or make a pecking paper woodpecker toy. Creative fun for families with children aged 5+.

£1 per child suggested donation (pay on the door).

Workshop times: 11am to 3pm (drop in)

Workshop dates: Tuesday 2, Wednesday 3 & Thursday 4 April

Enjoy a refreshing cup of tea or coffee and join Sue McNamara for crafting in our warm meeting room, Gallery Two. Complete beginners and all abilities and ages welcome, a chance to relax, meet other people, chat if you wish, and have a go at crochet. Free, no need to book, just come along. Bring your own craft project if you prefer.

You can also simply drop in and watch slides from times gone by on the ‘big screen’ - we’ll have a selection of images from the Wilf Merrett postcard collection for you to look at. Free tea, coffee and biscuits too - donations very welcome.

‘Winter Warmer’ Crochet & Chat dates & times:

Thursdays 22 & 29 February, 14 & 21 March, 10.30am - 12.30pm

Drawing on filmmaking talent, from near and far, this afternoon selection of short films will raise questions and provoke debate. These are journey films which take us from physical and spiritual places of conflict and lead us through difficult decisions and questions about the nature of family. Journeys which take place in both the inner and material worlds and ask how we get there?

These films also explore how short film can open up screen narratives and innovate within this varied and exciting genre of film-making. The screening will be accompanied by a Q&A and we encourage film lovers and film-makers to get involved.

The programme will include: Incompatible - Hayley Standing and Maxine Peake/ The Journey You'll Take - Philip Bos and Laura Makai/ Living in Limbo - Claudia Weston / Forbidden Birth - Sohrab  Kavir

Booking advised– book online via Stroud Film Festival or call 01453 763394

£8 (pay it forward)

£6 (standard)

£4 (low income/cost of living affected)

Enjoy a refreshing cup of tea or coffee and join Sue McNamara for crafting in our warm meeting room, Gallery Two. Complete beginners and all abilities and ages welcome, a chance to relax, meet other people, chat if you wish, and have a go at crochet. Free, no need to book, just come along. Bring your own craft project if you prefer.

You can also simply drop in and watch slides from times gone by on the ‘big screen’ - we’ll have a selection of images from the Wilf Merrett postcard collection for you to look at. Free tea, coffee and biscuits too - donations very welcome.

‘Winter Warmer’ Crochet & Chat dates & times:

Thursdays 22 & 29 February, 14 & 21 March, 10.30am - 12.30pm

As Part of Stroud Film Festival 2024 come and design your own ALIEN film poster and explore this year’s Film Poster Reinterpreted Exhibition theme of ‘SCI-FI’. Take inspiration from the fabulous range of exhibition posters designed by the newly founded Stroud Illustration Collective (SIC), our local talent of professional illustrators and designers on view in the art gallery and at popular satellite venues around town.

In the kind and inventive hands of SIC illustrator Imogen Harvey-Lewis, enjoy tips and hints on how to create an awesome and impactful poster of your very own. Before you come, watch films and get thinking…. so many weird and wonderful beings to choose from!

For families with children aged 5+, free but donations appreciated – give what you can.

Drop in and enjoy visiting the Museum with your Mum, treat her to tea and cake, and enjoy making a lovely little sweet smelling lavender sachet in our drop in craft workshop. Or make a card instead. £1 per lavender bag, card making free but donations very welcome.

Between 2pm - 4pm, you can also design your very own ‘Alien’ Sci Fi Film Poster, a special drop in workshop for Stroud Film Festival.

A film screening with live music, poetry reading and art exhibition exploring the connections between land, nature, people and flooding, in the Museum’s Walled Garden Pavilion.

Antony Lyons will show the film-poem ‘Fluid Forests - an ecological symphony’. This is an atmospheric, immersive work exploring some timeless watery habitats in the Stroud Valleys. For this premiere of the work, it will be accompanied by an improvised live music score performed by the Fantastic Future-Scapes project.

Adam Horovitz will read newly commissioned poems relating to nature-based approaches to reducing flood risk in the Stroud Valleys. 

Joe Magee and Chris Uttley (Stroud District Council) present an exhibition of original artwork from the graphic story ‘Sound of a River’, which tells the story of a young Stroud resident’s journey of discovery after the flooding of her home. 

The collection is inspired and part funded by Stroud District Council’s Stroud Valleys Natural Flood Management project, which works collaboratively to reduce flood risk, improve water quality and restore nature in the Stroud Valleys

The film runs for 30 minutes.

Booking required - book online via Stroud Film Festival

£8 (pay it forward)

£6 (standard)

£4 (low income/cost of living affected)

As part of Stroud Film Festival 2024, this year’s Film Poster Reinterpreted Exhibition is taking on the awesome theme of Science Fiction, oh yes!

Get your pencils sharpened and ready to draw with SIC (Stroud Illustration Collective) co-founder, Imogen Harvey-Lewis. Learn the simple steps to create an animated flip book of your own. From sequential story boarding, narrative, thumbnails and design, be prepared for some fun and intensive drawing.

Share your moving triumphs at MiP, at home and online. Simple is usually best, so before the workshop get watching movies, plan your pocket-sized Sci-Fi story and come on down to create.

For ages 6+, families welcome, advance booking essential.

Cost: £5 per child, accompanying adults free.

Book online - click here - or call 01453 763394

Using a matchbox as a base (or a card template), make a beautiful box to hold small treasures and trinkets. Inspired by the domestic storage boxes and tins - and the goodies and secrets they might have contained - displayed in ‘Running a Home’.

Part of our ‘Museum in Stiches’ series of explorations in stitch of the Museum and Walled Garden, with each themed workshop inspired by different display rooms or the garden, and a variety of textile skills. Suitable for adults (18+) with some experience of sewing or crafting. All materials and tea/coffee are provided in these relaxed and friendly sessions. Our tutor is Sue McNamara, an experienced and enthusiastic ‘maker and mender’ and textile tutor.

Times: 10.30am - 12.30pm

Cost: £20 (£15 MIP Members).

Only 10 places so advance booking essential.

Book online here or call 01453 763394.

Every year we celebrate Stroud’s unique animation heritage with a relaxed, free, drop in screening of some of Halas & Batchelor’s superb animated short films, to coincide with Stroud Film Festival. Beautifully crafted, technically brilliant, wonderfully inventive and full of humour … and every scene was drawn by hand! We love them and hope you do too.

During the 1940s and 1950s Stroud was Britain’s main centre for producing animated films. The Halas and Batchelor studio made hundreds of films, including Britain’s first ever animated feature film ‘Animal Farm’ (1954). In the Museum you can see a sound-video editing machine once used at the studio. If you or someone you know used to work at H&B we’d love to hear your memories and stories.

The short film collection will be showing on repeat throughout the day in the Museum’s Collectors’ Room.

Magic Canvas (1948); Flying Free (1980); The Owl and the Pussycat (1952); The Figurehead (1953); The History of the Cinema (1957); Foo Foo The Stowaway (1960); Haba Tales: The Cultured Ape (1960); Hamilton The Musical Elephant (1961); Automania 2000 (1963); DoDo – The Kid from Outer Space: The Kidnapped Kid (1964); Tales from Hoffnung: The Symphony Orchestra (1964); Flow Diagram (1966); The Question (1967); Children & Cars (1971); Butterfly Ball (1974); Autobahn (1979); Dilemma (1981)

With thanks to Vivien Halas and the Halas & Batchelor Collection.

Free event, donations welcome. Please be aware that some content is not suitable for young children.

Would you like to learn more about filmmaking? Are you aged 10 to 14? Then come along and be part of the 2024 Stroud Film Festival with an expert from Electric Blue Productions. Learn about the fundamentals of planning, making and editing your own film. We’ll talk about aspects of filming including camera, light and sound, as well as getting the most out of filming on a phone or tablet. Working solo or in small groups you’ll get hands on with storyboarding, filming, and editing. Get expert tips and ideas on how to make films about your own stories, and find out about the Film Festival’s 90 Second Film Challenge and how you can get involved.

For ages 10 - 14. Bring a snack or packed lunch.

Cost: £5 (free places also available)

Booking recommended, book online or call 01453 763394

We’re delighted to welcome back Pip Heywood for a double bill event in two halves, part of the 2024 Stroud Film Festival.

In the Frame: Film as Painting - Pip Heywood

Since last year’s festival screening, Pip has continued to make landscape films, at times meditative and still, at other times active and dramatic. He is exploring the painterly qualities of film, particularly the abstract. Introduced by Pip and followed by a Q&A.

“They are so fresh – completely apart from the grammars of conventional filmmaking, they have something spacious and abundant for us to come back to again and again.”

Bittersweet: A Wabi-sabi Outlook – Scott Anthony

A Japanese aesthetic that considers and accepts the transient nature of all things, with change as the only constant. Thus nothing can ever be finished or complete and nothing can be perfect or permanent. So bounded, Wabi-Sabi finds serene beauty, if bittersweet, in the natural passage of time. Poetry, haiku, imagery and photofilms that reflect nature’s influence on mind and sensibility. Introduced by Pip and followed by Q&A with Scott.

Cost: £8 / £6 / £4

Only 40 places so advance booking essential, book online at stroudfilmfestival.org

If you don’t have online access please call us on 01453 763394

Enjoy a refreshing cup of tea or coffee and join Sue McNamara for crafting in our warm meeting room, Gallery Two. Complete beginners and all abilities and ages welcome, a chance to relax, meet other people, chat if you wish, and have a go at crochet. Free, no need to book, just come along. Bring your own craft project if you prefer.

You can also simply drop in and watch slides from times gone by on the ‘big screen’ - we’ll have a selection of images from the Wilf Merrett postcard collection for you to look at. Free tea, coffee and biscuits too - donations very welcome.

‘Winter Warmer’ Crochet & Chat dates & times:

Thursdays 22 & 29 February, 14 & 21 March, 10.30am - 12.30pm

Enjoy a refreshing cup of tea or coffee and join Sue McNamara for crafting in our warm meeting room, Gallery Two. Complete beginners and all abilities and ages welcome, a chance to relax, meet other people, chat if you wish, and have a go at crochet. Free, no need to book, just come along. Bring your own craft project if you prefer.

You can also simply drop in and watch slides from times gone by on the ‘big screen’ - we’ll have a selection of images from the Wilf Merrett postcard collection for you to look at. Free tea, coffee and biscuits too - donations very welcome.

‘Winter Warmer’ Crochet & Chat dates & times:

Thursdays 22 & 29 February, 14 & 21 March, 10.30am - 12.30pm

Enjoy a refreshing cup of tea or coffee and join Sue McNamara for crafting in our warm meeting room, Gallery Two. Complete beginners and all abilities and ages welcome, a chance to relax, meet other people, chat if you wish, and have a go at crochet. Free, no need to book, just come along. Bring your own craft project if you prefer.

You can also simply drop in and watch slides from times gone by on the ‘big screen’ - we’ll have a selection of images from the Wilf Merrett postcard collection for you to look at. Free tea, coffee and biscuits too - donations very welcome.

‘Winter Warmer’ Crochet & Chat dates & times:

Thursdays 22 & 29 February, 14 & 21 March, 10.30am - 12.30pm

Discover a variety of old fashioned toys and games. Learn about the toys our great grandparents played with long before smartphones and tablets were invented, and have a go at playing some traditional, old fashioned games! Free drop in activities run by our friendly Learning Team. We look forward to seeing you … perhaps you’d like to tell us about your favourite toys and games too? All ages welcome.

Back by popular request! Another chance to drop in and have fun being creative with clay. Make a tiny pinch pot inspired by the Snake Pottery display and other ceramics in the Museum, or let your imagination guide you … we look forward to seeing what you create. Family drop in activity for families with children aged 5+, free but suggested donation £1 per child to help cover the cost of materials.

Pop in and have fun creating your own brooch inspired by the Anglo-Saxon saucer brooch on display in the Museum. Either use one of our templates or create your own design before using embossing foil and tools to create your own version of the beautiful archaeological find.

For families with children aged 5+, adults welcome too.

Cost: £1 per brooch to help pay for materials (extra donations welcome).

Come and be inspired by the fabulous SciFi Film Posters exhibition and imagine being a space explorer and time traveller … what alien creatures and fantastic worlds might you encounter? Drop in art activities devised by the kind and talented local artists Martha Lightfoot and Hannah Dyson. For families with children aged 5+, free but donations very welcome (suggested donation £1 per child to help with the cost of materials).