Wagon Yard Artists, the much loved community pottery/art space and gallery will close at the end of March due to Wiltshire Council’s whopping 280% increase in rent. Artist and teacher, Jeannette Therrien, started Wagon Yard Artists 25 years ago and it has been a popular community arts hub offering pottery/art classes as well as a showcase for art, jewellery and pottery often linked to the local landscape. It has also become a ‘go to’ place for gifts. The artists are now desperately looking for a new home at an affordable rent.
Wagon Yard Illustrator and Ceramic artist, Jacqui Melhuish, explained, “Sadly Jeannette, the lease holder, died on Christmas Eve and Wiltshire Council in negotiating another lease have set the rent 280% higher. We are all devastated. There is no way we can cope with such an increase especially with overhead costs to meet as well. We would have been able to accommodate a slight increase in rent, but not this. So, we are looking for new premises which, like Wagon Yard, have a showroom and a working space which can also be used to offer lessons. We can even use a dampish building as the kilns help keep the damp out. Many towns, such as Devizes, do subsidise or offer up buildings that artists can use that might be difficult to rent out as office space but so far we have not been able to find anywhere in Marlborough.”
Wagon Yard’s founder, Jeannette Therrien, also founded Marlborough’s Open Studios, together with Meryl Ainslie. The yearly Wagon Yard Open Studio together with a Christmas Open Studio have been very successful. Gillie Mcintyre, a Wagon Yard customer told Marlborough.news, “I’ve been coming here for 16 years and I’m going to miss it so much especially at Christmas and during Open Studios.”
Jacqui commented, “If anyone knows of an affordable space we can move to please do contact me. It will be such a terribly sad and wasted opportunity for Marlborough if we can no longer continue.”
Jacqui, whose blue splash plates and raku pottery are very popular, is also busy selling Jeannette’s glasswork at a reduced price. Wagon Yard will be open on Saturday Feb 1st from 10-4pm. She can be contacted on Mobile: 07773271572 Email: jacqui.melhuish@btinternet.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/jacqui_melhuish
Would this happen in any other Wiltshire town? In Trowbridge, Devizes, Chippenham or one of the other market towns that make Wiltshire what it is? Not for us to judge but this comes hard on the heels of the recent disclosure re. investment in repairing the many potholes we have to avoid every time we get behind a wheel – Marlborough was at the bottom the list of spend by town.