About Us
Coombe is a small-scale rural centre, dedicated to growing creativity. It’s a place where you can develop new skills, supported by a beautiful environment, great food & people who actively enable the creative process. It’s also a place to make and show work, connect with nature and get inspired.
We opened in 1983, it was one of the first small artist-led centres offering week-long creative courses. Since then, over the past 35 years, we are lucky to have developed an amazing network of people from all over the world.
Our core activity is a mix of tutored art retreats that run year-round, bespoke projects for the creative community and showcasing new work on and off site.
We celebrate difference, enjoy the messy ways of the creative process, celebrating the tricky bits, sharing in the successes and frustrations, encouraging others to explore and share the process of making. We are interested in cultivating wisdom, courage and wonder, and we believe in action. We collaborate and look for synergies with others, to ensure that we, as well as the people we work with, aren’t burnt out, bored, disillusioned or skint, but rather nourished, inspired, committed, passionate, and working within resource limits.
Our small-scale allows us to be attentive to the simple things we believe make a great place to create, learn and research – skills-based tuition from passionate professions, a relaxed atmosphere, a beautiful environment, delicious food and great company.
Who we are
Lara Lloyd, Director
Coombe is run by Lara and her husband Martin. Lara grew up at Coombe – it was started by her parents Paul & Tina - after leaving home Lara spent time living and working in village potteries in Vietnam, before moving to London where she worked at Contemporary Applied Arts, the Rebecca Hossack Gallery, the British Council and Visiting Arts. On returning to Devon, her arts career continued as she worked for 12 years as programmer, producer & commissioner of live performance at Dartington. Lara took over the day-to-day running of Coombe Farm Studios in 2012 and is a Board Member of Dance in Devon. She lives and works at Coombe full time with Martin and their daughters Sasha and Rosa.
Paul & Tina Riley, Founders
Coombe was founded by Paul & Tina Riley and it continues to be their home. Paul is an internationally renowned artist, author and Coombe’s lead tutor. Tina ran her own fashion company prior to running Coombe for thirty years, she now makes exceptional handmade jewellery, curates exhibitions in the gallery and ensures everyone is well fed by tending to our on-site vegetable garden.
Janet Bird - Chef
Janet Bird - Chef
Janet is our fabulous chef cooking delicious food during the courses with a care and passion for produce, flavour and nourishment. Prior to Coombe janet catered for retreats at nearby Sharpham and authored their bestselling cookbook. Janet cooks using the vegetables and herbs we grow on the land at Coombe, caters for all dietary requirements brings a relaxed and nourishing approach to the Coombe kitchen and is a joy to have as part of our small team.
Lola Grogan, The Eco Laundry
Lola runs the first Eco Laundry in the UK and luckily for us it is located just over the hills from Coombe where Lola lives with her husband and two young boys. The Laundry uses a water borehole, biomass and solar technologies, energy efficient washing machines, and the very best quality, gentle, eco-friendly laundry detergents on the market – all to ensure we have minimal impact on our environment and you have the softest cleanest sheets and fluffy towels.
Where we are
Coombe is located in Devon, UK in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. 7 miles from Totnes, 7 miles from Dartmouth and 1 mile from the village of Dittisham. Our nearest train station is in Totnes. Our nearest airport is Exeter.
Coombe Farm Studios
Dittisham, Dartmouth
Devon, TQ6 0JA
Make a donation.
We support artists and producers to make new work in theatre, dance and music. Particularly work that is concerned with issues of migration, climate change and human rights. The work goes on to be performed at venues and festivals across the UK and beyond. See our Bespoke Page for some of our projects (The Distillery and Kairos Time) and for more information. If you can donate to our projects, we can better support artists to make new work.