St. Marys Guildhall
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St Mary’s Guildhall Community Engagement

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St Mary's Guildhall has been an important community space for over 700 years and continues to be so today.

In 2020, The National Lottery Heritage Fund generously awarded Coventry City Council a grant in support of the transformation of St Mary’s Guildhall, which has enabled much needed enhancements to the historic site including greater accessibility, the conservation and redisplay of the magnificent tapestry, and the development of state-of-the-art interpretation facilities. One of the priorities of the funding is to keep the Guildhall at the heart of the community it has served for 700 years, and engage new audiences who haven’t discovered us yet. 

Whether you are a new visitor, or a regular returning one – welcome, and I hope you enjoy your time here!

Here are just a few of our previous projects. 

We are also happy to work with you to see if we can deliver an individualised programme for your group or tour. 

For more information please contact smgh@noordinaryhospitality.com.
An image showing four people weaving the Marguerite Tapestry in the Great Hall. You can see the edges of the design beginning to come through at the bottom of the loom - a small orange corner, with white petals after and a blue background.
Photo credit - Jamie Gray Photography 

Underground Lights Creative Cafe

As part of the St Mary's Guildhall Community Grant Programme, Underground Lights hosted their Creative Cafe at the Guildhall. Over the course of twelve weeks they tooks tours of the building, and were inspired by the space to create art, music and poetry. At the end of the term they put on a wonderful end of term performance and Open Mic Night in the Great Hall. To read more about the project, please follow the link to their blog. 

Underground Lights are a community theatre company that is run for an by adults experiencing social disadvantage, homelessness and/or mental health issues in Coventry Warwickshire and the surrounding area. 

Read more
An image showing a group of people mid performance on the stage in the Great Hall. One man is playing the guitar.
Photo: Underground Lights, Mandp Seehra 
The launch of the CCCHP Exhibition held at St Marys Guildhall
Photo credit: Jamie Gray Photography 

Unholy Trinity with Ego Arts

As part of the St Mary’s Guildhall Community Engagement Programme, as supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we worked with Ego Arts who created an incredible theatrical production which opened at St Mary’s Guildhall on 10th October 2024, and ran until 19th October 2024. Francis Stojsavljevic, from Ego Arts, wrote about their work in this blog. 

The show received phenomenal feedback and welcomed new visitors to the Guildhall every night.

Read more
Photo Credit: Ego Arts
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Listen to the story of

Frederick Douglass

St Mary’s Guildhall Community Grant Project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, was designed to hand over the reins of the programme to the community, and fund projects that were designed for and by the communities in Coventry. Digital Douglass is one of those projects.

The project reached out to young people of African origin, and invited them to research, write and perform a script for an audio track telling the story of Frederick Douglass. Douglass was a formerly enslaved person who used his hard-won freedom to campaign for the abolition of slavery. He was a talented orator and used his skills to tour Britain and Ireland to raise funds and support for the abolition movement. This is the product of their work.

Credited participants: Lead Producer: Taylor Renee Cottrel. Denzel-Reagan Kira, Jude Avery, Deborah Paul-Enahoro, Hiten Vara, Takudzwa Mudiwa. This project, designed and run by House of Emanuel I&1 C.I.C.

Visit the historical Guildhall

Visit the historical Guildhall

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Educational tours available to book now

Education
Enjoy tasty treats in our Tales of Tea restaurant

Enjoy tasty treats in our Tales of Tea restaurant

Tales of tea

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St Mary’s Guildhall and the Tales of Tea restaurant occasionally close for private events. Please follow the 'LEARN MORE' tab to check our closure information webpage for upcoming closure dates.
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