Bondgate Gallery

Bondgate Gallery in Bishop Auckland is the exclusive outlet for original paintings and limited edition prints by Eric Thompson, a watercolourist born in nearby Shildon in 1947. Thompson worked as an industrial chemist until the early 1980s, when he left the trade to paint full time; he has since exhibited across the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and Dublin, working mainly in watercolour but also oil, pastel and acrylic. He opened the gallery in 2008 together with his daughter Lynn, who now runs its day-to-day operations and its online shop, which ships original works and prints across the UK. Thompson has also taught painting classes for three decades through the gallery's associated art school. The gallery's stock runs to more than a thousand paintings, spanning North East scenes, railway subjects and views from further afield.