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HISTORY |
Built in 1898 (The year 1928 over the door into the main studio is the date the porch was built) The Tower Arts Centre was originally a Water Tower serving Winchester, until, in 1955 the Reservoir (now the Car park) proved inadequate to the City’s needs and a new Water Tower was established elsewhere.
DRAMA AT THE TOWER The Centre was eventually opened in 1969 as a Drama Centre with toilets, workshop space, coffee bar, changing rooms and a gallery area added to enable young people to work with specialist Drama teachers in a well resourced drama space at a time when Hampshire schools did not have specialist drama and arts teachers.
BECOMING AN ARTS CENTRE As the Centre became more established it ventured into other artforms and began to provide activities for adults, bringing in professional theatre companies on occasion to perform for drama groups and the general public. Other professional arts workers were introduced and the Programme became more established, with multi-media Arts Projects happening in Schools as well as in The Tower. From 1980 to 1983 the Tower hosted a government funded Youth Opportunities programme involving two professional arts workers and groups of young people, producing a number of large-scale Performance works which then toured schools and other venues in Hampshire. The rest of the programme continued to develop with the Centre introducing live music events and working closely with Forkbeard Fantasy Comic-Visual Theatre on innovative mixed media events and Cabarets.
DEPARTMENTAL SHIFTS In 1990, in recognition of the fact that the Centre’s programme had grown from a clearly arts educational base to include events purely for entertainment, The Tower along with other County funded Arts Centres, was moved from within the Education Department to Recreation. Despite all the resulting administrative change and uncertainty, the Tower arrived at a time where, with support from the County Arts Office, began to develop a greatly improved service, with better administration systems and a broader range of programming. The arts centres have since been moved again into Arts, Countryside and Community, although this time with considerably less trauma.
THE TOWER GETS BIGGER In June 1996 Phase One of the Building programme - the visual arts studio, and accessible toilet - was completed and plans drawn up for Phase Two. The plan was to build further studio and office space onto the new arts studio and this would take up most of the present reservoir car park. However, this would lose us valuable car parking space and alternative plans are currently being considered.
JOINING andCo In 1996 The Tower joined with five other Hampshire arts centres to form a consortium (subsequently called andCo) and won funding from the Arts Council of England to investigate new areas of programming and joint initiatives. Consequently, Phase Two has been delayed and re-thought as a result of this stabilisation process. A team of Evaluators from ACE have given The Tower a very favourable report and recommended further ACE financial support.
THE FUTURE The Tower continues to go from strength to strength, with good attendances for events and classes as part of an increasingly varied arts programme for Winchester, district and the wider community. The Tower also created and hosts the Winchester Youth Theatre, the hugely successful Winchester Children’s Festival and an annual Summer School. We also produce a special newsletter (The Rocket) three time a year which goes into all Winchester junior and primary schools and have recently installed surround sound and video projection facilities. We work closely with Winchester City Council to deliver an arts strategy for the district and plans for the near future include The Tower becoming a recording studio, producing tapes and CD’s as well as publishing poetry and other literature. |