Shrewsbury School of Art

The School of Art was founded in 1855 on College Hill. A house was bought by the town’s Technical Instruction Committee in 1899 to provide a centre for technical and commercial classes and a school of art. By 1919 more space was needed and a disused brush factory in Abbey Foregate was rented for two years before the school moved to a new building near English Bridge. The Technical College as it was then known expanded on this site in 1938, with the School of Art as a department. A new Shrewsbury Technical College, later renamed Shrewsbury College of Arts and Technology, opened in 1960, leaving the School of Art in the old Abbey School building, which has been occupied since 1985 by the English Bridge Workshop arts organisation.