Buckinghamshire Craft Guild.

It is almost 8 years since the Buckinghamshire Craft Guild  first opened the doors of it’s beautiful shop/gallery space at Layby Farm, Stoke Mandeville. Since then we have built a loyal customer base and our small gallery has grown and developed over that time into a beautifully curated space where the public can come and browse the work of over 30 local artists/makers. A few years ago we moved into a larger space on the same site and expanded our beautiful gallery.

In the last couple of years, road closures due to HS2 work have impacted our site greatly and  sadly, we have had to take the decision to close the gallery at the end of Sept 2025. We are not closing for good though! We are seeking out a new permanent home for the guild where we can continue to flourish long into the future. This may take a little time though. Finding the right space in the right place will be challenging so in the meantime, we will be ‘popping up’ in different venues so that you can keep up to date with all our artists.

What made the Guild special was that it offered a unique opportunity to interact with the makers themselves and maybe even to buy something directly from the person who made it. Every day, different artists were at work, demonstrating their skills and talking to visitors about their inspirations and processes.

From a personal point of view, I have enjoyed my days stewarding and demonstrating hugely. Most of all, I have loved meeting and getting to know the other guild members and watching them work. There were potters, stone masons, jewellers, printmakers, glass artists, woodworkers and more. Chatting to them and gaining an insight into their backgrounds, working methods, techniques etc was so interesting and it has been a real privilege to eaves drop on their discussions as they demonstrated their skills to the guild visitors.

We look forward to our new chapter and doing our first pop up where there’ ll be lots of new work to see. Visitors are welcome whether they are serious buyers or just curious browsers. To keep up with what we’re up to sign up to our newsletter through the guild website http://www.buckinghamshirecraftguild.co.uk Or check social media where updated news and information will be posted regularly. You can follow the guild on Facebook or Instagram as ‘Buckinghamshire Craft Guild’