Your Support, Your Community

Bedford House needs to raise a minimum of £70,000 per annum, and sometimes almost £100,000 depending on operational expenditure in that year.  All our courses are subsidised by over 30%.

Support our Spring Appeal 2025 – Raising £10,000 in 10 weeks. This year we also need to urgently raise an additional £10,000 to cover unbudgeted costs such as increases to NI (due to the new government putting up employer’s NI contributions mid-year), increases in electricity costs (the landlord changing gas heating to electric heating mid-year which is much more expensive to run), maintenance costs above usual of pottery equipment, and much needed improvements to our outdated IT systems.

Bedford House needs your support to exist year on year as it is independent and receives no funding from Essex County Council (ECC) or government.  ECC offers Bedford House the use of the property and some Landlord type maintenance.

Bedford House is a creative and dynamic hob with over 300 students attending courses every week and a weekly site footfall of over 500 people.  Our key demographic is aged 55+ with an average student age of 60+.  It is not unusual to find students aged over 80 with our oldest recent student being a seated dancer aged 103.  It is a friendly and sociable learning environment with much laughter emanating from classrooms.  Over time Bedford House has had over 35,000 annual memberships.

Bedford House has fantastic tutors who are professional and passionate artists in their own right, who understand the students’ requirements and adapt their teaching methods to their cohorts.  This may include working with a range of disabilities such as sight impairments, mild to moderate dementia, and mobility issues.  Bedford House also offers much needed opportunities for respite for carers.  Our tutors are keen to engage students and include all skills levels and abilities.