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About Us
Creativity at the heart of every community in North Yorkshire
Rural Arts is a registered charity that delivers inspiring and inclusive creative opportunities that enrich lives and connect communities.
Working across 3,500 square miles of England’s largest county, our vision is creativity in every community in North Yorkshire. We seek to achieve this through:

We provide over 400 events and activities each year at The Courthouse, a vibrant cross-discipline arts centre at the heart of North Yorkshire. The Courthouse is also home to an award-winning café, an artisan shop and rooms to hire.

We programme 70 professional performances per year in rural venues through ON Tour. ON Tour is a rural touring scheme that works with hundreds of volunteers to bring live performance to their doorstep.

We lead a range of wellbeing and training programmes to support some of North Yorkshire’s most isolated and vulnerable people. We have specialisms in supporting older people, and people not in education, employment or training. We are a lead partner of North Yorkshire Together.
Through our work, our actions and our operations we strive to live our values: to be inclusive, passionate, enriching, innovative and ambitious.
Rural Arts was founded in 1993 and is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.