Exeter Phoenix

An arts centre run by an independent charity since its founding in 1984 — the city and county councils and the Arts Council bought the building, but the operation was charitable from the first day — Exeter Phoenix fills Bradninch Place with three galleries, a solar-powered cinema, gigs, comedy, theatre, courses and a couple of hundred volunteers behind the paid staff. The Exeter Contemporary Open hangs each autumn, the Big Screen moves into the garden each summer, and the café bar keeps daytime-to-evening hours through Saturday. Renamed Phoenix after its Lottery-funded rebuild at the end of the nineties, and still run by its own trustees, not the council.