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Hotwalls Studios provides affordable workspaces for its ever-evolving creative community.

Transforming part of the city’s historic coastal defences, the design and layout of the site is intended to allow visitors to see artists and makers at work. Visitors can meet the creatives, take part in workshops and purchase or commission professional pieces from the artists and makers directly.

Hotwalls Studios is managed by Portsmouth City Council.

Annie Flitcroft at work in Studio 12 at Hotwalls Studios, Old Portsmouth.
Annie Flitcroft at work in Studio 12

Our Aims

  • Meet the need for affordable studio space for artists and makers to develop their creative ventures within the city of Portsmouth.
  • Provide a flexible and supportive environment for creatives
  • Work with like-minded organisations to create further opportunities for our artists and makers.
  • Develop a cultural hub for the creative community locally and regionally by showcasing a wide range of diverse, high quality and professional artists and makers and through a wide and varied cultural and creative events programme.

History

What is now Hotwalls Studios started out as Point Battery and Barracks, which along with the Round Tower formed part of Portsmouth’s original military defences built to protect the port from attack by sea.

Gosport, The Entrance to Portsmouth Harbour by JMW Turner (Courtesy of Portsmouth Museums)
Gosport, The Entrance to Portsmouth Harbour by JMW Turner (Courtesy of Portsmouth Museums)
Point Barracks looking toward the Square Tower. The arches to the right are now our studios (Courtesy of Portsmouth Museums)
Point Barracks looking toward the Square Tower. The arches to the right are now our studios (Courtesy of Portsmouth Museums)

The Round Tower began as a wooden structure built between 1418 and 1426 on the orders of Henry V. In the 1490s the tower was rebuilt in stone. Point Battery and Barracks was first constructed in the 1680s as a line of ramparts that connected the Round Tower to the nearby Square Tower. They were reconstructed between 1847 and 1850 as a coastal artillery. The arches that now house artists’ studios had provided living accommodation for soldiers along with gun positions.

Photograph by J. Arthur Dixon depicting the weekend art sales in the early 1970s (Courtesy of Portsmouth Museums)
Photograph by J. Arthur Dixon depicting the weekend art sales in the early 1970s (Courtesy of Portsmouth Museums)

By the end of the Second World War, the Battery was decommissioned, and local artists started the tradition of selling art from the arches at weekends. In the 1960s, the site was purchased by Portsmouth City Council. In 2014 Portsmouth City Council, the Coastal Communities Fund and the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire provided funds to refurbish the buildings and turn them into working artists’ studios. Development of the site was completed in 2016.

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