Trinity's Community Garden is a thriving, tranquil, nature-rich green oasis right in the heart of the city of Bristol. Together, we are building a resilient, connected and sustainable community.

'The growing in the garden is lovely and the sessions are very therapeutic and informative. It also appears to be a much-valued ‘sanctuary’ to the community in this inner city area of Bristol, and I would recommend them. It’s a wonderful use of what was once a very sad, decaying place.'' Eric

What we do:

- provide a space for health and well being for all the community to reflect, interact, grow

- deliver a range of educational workshops for children, families and local adults groups

- host a range of creative, diverse events responsive to our local community

- provide a safe, accessible space for everyone to enjoy

- showcase organic food growing techniques and grow medicinal plants, reactive to climate change

- offer volunteer opportunities for gardening and environmental education

The Garden hosts over 200 sessions and activities each year attended by over 600 partipants, with many attending regular weekly drop ins or workshops. The space also sees us hosting an annual Garden Party each May attracting an audience of 3,000 people.

See the Whats On area of our site for more info about events and activities in the Garden.

Nature & Play activities at Trinity

2019-2021

With funding from BBC Children in Need, Trinity delivered a three year programme of activities based in our Community Garden engaging, educating and connecting our local children aged 18 and under to a green space and to each other.

In the first year of the project, the garden team have worked in partnership with local schools and charities to welcome over 140 children to weekly Forest Schools and Gardening Days, as well as inviting families and friends from our local community to Summer Holiday Family Days.

Sessions are tailored to help support social and emotional development as many children and families who take part in the programme experience economic and social hardship.

During a Forest School/Gardening Day children take part in fire making, identifying plants, sowing seeds, and team building games as well as natural craft activities and free play in the garden.

Family Days, delivered in partnership with St Pauls Nursery & Children's Centre and Julian House charity, include storytelling activities, music workshops, natural craft workshops, insect hunts, and games

• 143 Children (aged 18 under) took part in 41 garden sessions and activities delivered in partnership with local schools (BS2) and charities
• 88% of children started to, or showed significant improvement in developing positive relationships
• 91% of children started to, or showed significant improvement in their self belief
• 87% of children started to, or showed significant improvement in their emotional well being

Dance activities at Trinity

Moving Bristol

Moving Bristol is a two-year project 2019-21 by Bristol Dance Futures aiming to connect and increase dance activities across the city.

The project focuses on two key areas - developing dance practice and new and existing audiences and developing an ecology of dance across Bristol.

Three Dance Hubs will focus on the development of Dance within Health, Young People and Audiences and placing artists in residence across the city to inspire dance practice.

About Bristol Dance Futures

Bristol Dance Futures is a consortium of organisations and independent dance practitioners committed to making Bristol a place where everybody can move and be moved by dance, set up by in 2016 by Theatre Bristol, Pavilion Dance South West, Bristol City Council and independents, including dancer Laïla Diallo.

Between 2016-2018 the consortia undertook research and consultation with the sector, mapping Bristol’s professional dance network and carrying out research into the thousands of people who take part in and watch dance in the city.

Aims

• Nurture the talent of artists of all dance types

• Grow audiences and participation in dance

• Promote Bristol’s diverse dance identity

Consortia members 2020-21

Organisations: Arnolfini, Circomedia, In Between Time, Theatre Bristol, Trinity Community Arts.

Artists & practitioners: Gabrielle Cook, Deepraj Singh and Lauren Scholey

We welcome new artist representatives who reflect the breadth of Bristol’s practice and communities.

Please get in touch for more information.

Illustrated portraits of participant of Lullabies are displayed in the Graffiti Room as part of Roxana Vilk's Lullabies takeover. Photo Khali Ackford

Trinity have been awarded a prestigious Bristol Life Award, coming first in the 2021 Arts category.

“A truly one-of-a-kind art space that this year engaged 60,000+ people across over 1,000 events and cultural experiences.” Judges, Bristol Life Awards

We were nominated alongside Bristol Old Vic, St George’s Bristol, Bristol Beacon, and Brave Bold Drama, who received a highly commended award for their achievements over the last year.

When the building closed due to COVID-19, our programme went online, featuring live streams and workshops. We teamed up with leading circus company Cirque Bijou to host a 'Day of Dance’ to celebrate what would have been Bristol Harbour Festival. We commissioned live experiences including: Social Muscle Club (in partnership with Shambala), Learning To Swim On An Ironing Board, and What Words Are Ours?, in partnership with The Gulbenkian Theatre (both BSL interpreted).

Partnering with St Paul’s Carnival, we live-streamed carnival in a UK first - and, with the support of Carnival Elders, commissioned a poem by Bristol poet Malaika Kegode. As well as this, we worked with community organisation Eastside Community Trust to distribute over 900 family activity packs to local school children and families.

We commissioned Split Ink Theatre Company to devise a new piece of work for young audiences. Artist Tink Flaherty was awarded a D/deaf/Disabled commission to create a new piece of digital work. Roxana Vilk’s Lullabies project, initially developed as part of our IGNiTE arts development programme, connected 100s of families across Bristol and beyond through online workshops.

We are so proud of the team who worked hard to adapt delivery over the pandemic and want to say a huge thank you to all our funders and supporters and, of course, everyone who took part in the programme and helped make the magic happen.

Want to take part in activity at Trinity? Click here to see what is coming up.

Locality, an organisation that supports community businesses to be strong and successful, came down to Trinity for a day to film a short video focusing on Trinity's role as a community arts hub.

"In a physical space when you’re enjoying something, whether you’re having fun just getting down, having a dance or making something and being really proud of that thing that you made – art is just quite magical". Emma Harvey, Trinity CEO

Featuring Trinity regulars Hype Dance as well as CEO Emma Harvey, the film shines a light on the range of community activities at the centre, from neighbourhood celebrations to accessible and affordable dance and music events, as well as nurturing emerging artists.

Trinity is one of the few remaining truly independent community arts venues in the city so it felt fitting to launch the film on Venues Day, 5th October 2021. To mark the film's launch, Trinity took over Locality's social media to celebrate the charity's role as a hub for community arts.

The film was part of a wider set of films showcasing the many great activities that take place across the community and voluntary sector. You can find out more about the work Locality do by visiting their website.

In a period of growing inequality and a desperate housing and homelessness crisis, the discussion around property, the landed and the landless, the disappearance of the commons, and the privatisation of just about everything, is the issue of our times. With the huge systemic inequalities that are created thereby, the need for alternative thinking and action has never been so vital.

Led by Chris Chalkley, founder and director of People's Republic Of Stokes Croft Rebel Walk: Tesco Riot will explore the social and cultural experiment that some claim Stokes Croft to be, and the role of PRSC in that experiment, as we come to realise the necessity to find better solutions to the disaster that conventional economics has created.

How To Book and Key Information
Booking in advance is essential - tickets are Pay What You Can starting from £3+ booking fee per person and you can book your tickets using the 'Book Tickets' link on the left hand side of this page.

The walk will start and finish at Space at People's Republic Of Stokes Croft (17-25 Jamaica Street, BS2 8JP).

The walk will last 2 hours and will be followed by an opportunity to stay around in the bar afterwards to buy refreshments and ask informal questions.

If you have any access needs you'd like to discuss before booking, please contact the box office at info@trinitybristol.org.uk or by calling on 0117 935 1200.

About Art Of Resistance
Rebel Walk is part Trinity's Art of Resistance, a two-year National Lottery Heritage Funded project celebrating Bristol's alternative and activist heritage through a series of workshops, walks, talks, exhibitions, and oral history.

Young people from Making Tracks project who came along to chat with Dev from IDLES. Photo Lee Ramsay

Adam Devonshire (AKA Dev), bass player with Bristol based UK album chart topping post punk band IDLES, headed to Trinity to share his professional experience with emerging musicians on Trinity's music making project Making Tracks.

"It gave me some great insight into the industry and made me realise what I need to do next." Jasper, Trinity Making Tracks Participant

Dev spoke in great detail about the Idles ethos, song writing, musical inspiration, touring, branding and approach to digital streaming. His main advice to the young people who to 'hone your craft, write loads of songs - then scrap those songs and write better ones, play tons of gigs and build a strong local fan base'. He advised that once this has been achieved this then you can start thinking about moving outwards and attracting more industry attention.

Dev gave insight to Idles early days - playing tiny local bars to virtually no one to supporting the Foo Fighters, touring the world and playing the Park stage at Glastonbury Festival - something which had been a dream for the band right from the very start.

"I’ve had to sacrifice a lot to get to this point. The band has always come first. Even when no one seemed interested in us. We just kept on working hard, learning our craft and believing we could achieve and do what we love." Dev, IDLES

To finish off Dev took a quick fire round in which we learnt his favourite ice cream is mint choc chip, the first single he bought was, ‘Boom! Shake the Room’, by DJ Jazzy Jeff and that one of his favourite films is Shane Meadows bleak cult classic, ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’.

This exciting opportunity was co-created in direct response to feedback from a cohort of students involved in the Making Tracks Steering group. This group empowers young people within the project to have their voice amplified and opinions heard, providing them with autonomy and agency helping them to shape and design the Making Tracks’ programme.

About Making Tracks

Making Tracks is supported by Youth Music and using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, as well as support from match funders Youth Sector Support Fund.

Hype Dance Group at Trinity. Photo credit: Alex Brenner

"I've never had much luck when it comes to competitions, aside from a school fete circa 1998 when I won a pack of colouring pencils in a raffle (does that even count?) but the failure has never deterred me. Given my lack of success, I didn't have high hopes last year when I filled out Trinity Centre's questionnaire in hope of winning a custom-designed Minirig (while sharing my views on the venue, of course), so the day I found out I had in fact won was a thoroughly joyous one. I've always wanted a Minirig and the speaker has been very well used over the past year, having been taken to various green spaces across Bristol, the few festivals that have taken place for campsite tunes and the back garden on sunny days, not to mention for post-lockdown shindigs. I don't think my neighbours are quite so fond of it, though... After my rare taste of success, I highly recommend you fill out this year's survey. You've got to be in it to win it, after all, and even if you don't get as lucky as I did, you'll be helping shape the future of this fantastic venue."

Robin Murray, Mini Rig Winner 2020

Your voice matters - each year we ask you to share your thoughts about Trinity. Feedback from audiences helps us shape and adapt our programme and helps us raise funds so we can ensure that everyone in Bristol has the opportunity to access and shape arts and culture.

Last year over 500 of you to the time to share what areas we could improve at Trinity and how we could welcome audiences back following the easing of Lockdown restrictions:

You said: You would love to see "a larger outdoor venue" and "as many live music and DJ events in the garden following social distancing practices".

What we did: In Oct 2020 we did just that with the Garden Sessions. Over two months we welcomed live music and DJ sets back audiences to enjoy the likes of Waldo’s Gift and Hodge and Danielle. We brought back the pop-up venue in April and May 2021 – this time programming a wider variety of events including a Desert Island style panel talk with Reggae and Soundsystem legends Lioness and Vibronics.

You said: You would like "more activities for children & families"

What we did: As part of Trinity Presents, we welcomed family-focused events, including Baby Raves, workshops with Associate Artist Roxana Vilk and performances for young children.

You said: "Be open to what the community needs (community-led) and potentially provide free space where people can start to engage in positive activities in a safe way".

What we did: We employed a new Activities Coordinator whose role is to work with local communities to support new events and activities at Trinity.

We have recruited more community members to be part of our Trinity Presents programming forum - members have helped selected artists commissions as well as a programme of Theatre and Dance.

You said: " I think your loos in the main hall need improvement".

What we did: Installed new cubicles in the toilets in the main halls and are currently developing plans to install new toilets in the grounds.

We would love you to share your voice again this year by filling out our short survey, it takes about 15 mins - and we really do listen.

Last year, Robin Murray filled in our questionnaire and was selected through random selection to receive a custom designed Mini Rig - share you voice this year you can be in for a chance to win a Trinity Mini-Rig, custom-designed by Adam Menzies.

Click here to fill out our audience survey

Survey closes 06 Oct 2021 5pm

From STANLAEY + Robbie & Mona, boundary pushing experimental dance music electronic artist Sunun, underground Techno from Bristol's own Giant Swan and emerging female and non-binary collective Booty Bass, some of the best sounds in the South West have performed as part of Garden Sessions in our magical outdoor venue this year.

“Throughout all craziness of the last few years, Trinity have always been there providing a space for us and many other artists to do what we do best” Pete Cunningham, Ishmael Ensemble

Across 13 shows we welcomed over 1600 people, supporting 51 artists and creating 88 opportunities for paid work for the freelance creative workforce.

We connected with local communities to offer affordable tickets for all our shows, including nationally touring British/Somali singer FaceSoul, whose intimate performance created lasting memories for all who attended.

Due to the success of Garden Sessions we are planning to launch the outdoor venue as a seasonable space in 2022. Click here to find out more.

Teachings in Dub regular sound system night @Trinity, ©Khali Ackford

Trinity Community Arts Statement re Trinity Road Police Station Redevelopment, Sept 2021

Trinity welcomes the prospect of increased affordable homes in the locality offered through the proposed scheme, but it’s important for everyone to understand what that will actually mean in practice.

People need housing and existing residents also want to see improvements to their area. However, as one local resident has fed back to us regarding the proposed development; “When they say affordable housing there is no mention of social housing - that simply means people on benefits will have no chance to get a house, which is the issue we have in Bristol - there's not enough social housing. Not affordable housing. Social housing.”

As with other developments in the city and country, we have to be mindful about the 1st of 10 principles from the Govt’s National Design Guide, which is ‘context’ and this rapid re-imagining of our city has to include everyone.

Unfortunately, in spite of Agent of Change, the responsibility to protect what exists already falls to individual businesses and citizens like us.

As with recent developments near venues such as Motion, we are keen to see as part of this development that a Deed of Easement is placed onto the application as a condition at planning stage, to protect Trinity as an existing venue with a rich music and cultural heritage and a lively and diverse present-day offering.

We have discussed with developer acoustic considerations and are keen to understand more about how they've been incorporated into the design. So far, there has been a lot of good will expressed.

Now we just need to ensure this translates into conditions and mitigation measures as part of the development to legally safeguard Trinity’s future as a cultural institution for East Bristol.

We recommend anyone with concerns to direct these through the Bristol City Council planning portal (application ref no. 21/04338/F).