Rural Arts at The Courthouse

The Old Courthouse on Westgate spent its working life dispensing justice and now houses Rural Arts, which describes itself as the only professionally run cross-arts centre in North Yorkshire. The Grade II listed building was refurbished in 2021, so what you walk into is a proper gallery space. There is a changing exhibition programme, a shop selling work by independent artists, a workshop timetable that runs through the year, and a touring performance strand under the ON Tour banner. For a town of this size, that is a serious cultural offer, and it is free to walk in and look.

From Tea Time Cafe at 87 Market Place, leave the square by Castlegate and turn right onto Westgate. Pass the Town Hall and The Courthouse is a few metres beyond it at number 4. Five minutes at an easy pace, flat pavement all the way. The Ritz Cinema is on the same street, which is why the two get done together so often.

There is limited Blue Badge parking on site, booked by emailing admin@ruralarts.org in advance or by ringing 01845 526536 on the day. Everyone else should use the town centre car parks; the Market Place is the closest and the first hour there is free.

Start with whatever is in the gallery, since the exhibitions change and the space is the best part of the refurbishment. Then the shop, which stocks work by independent artists and is a better bet for a present than anything on the high street. There is also a cafe in the building if you need one.

If your dates are flexible, look at the programme before you come. The workshops run for all ages and abilities, from a single-session taster a visitor can drop into to longer courses aimed at locals, and the ON Tour performances bring theatre and music to a town that would otherwise drive to York for them. Half an hour covers the gallery and shop; an evening event turns it into the main thing you did that day.

The gallery is the reason to walk in off the street, and it changes often enough to be worth a second visit on a later trip. The shop is the quiet highlight, priced across a wide range and stocked with makers you will not find elsewhere in town. The workshop programme is the thing visiting families most often overlook, and school holiday sessions are the ones to book. And the building itself, courtroom bones and all, is worth five minutes of looking up.

Note the closed days and the two sets of hours. The exhibitions run Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm, and the shop keeps shorter hours, 11am to 2pm. Sunday and Monday visitors find the doors shut, and that is the single most common wasted walk down Westgate. Check the What's On page before you travel rather than on the day, because workshops need booking and the popular ones fill during school holidays. Evening performances solve the problem of what to do after dinner in a small town, and they pair neatly with the Ritz along the same street if you would rather have a film. Park on the Market Place, where the first hour is free; the limited spaces at the building itself are for Blue Badge holders, booked by email in advance or by phone on the day.