About us

Our vision

About Us

Stanley Arts is a registered charity (Registered Charity: 1155680) housed in a Grade II‑listed Edwardian building gifted to the community by inventor and philanthropist William F. Stanley in 1903. Since 2015, the building has been managed by a community‑led charity established to revitalise the Stanley Halls as a thriving arts venue, honouring Stanley’s original vision while reinterpreting it for the 21st century.

We are dedicated to celebrating creativity and cultural heritage through a radically inclusive programme of professional performances, artist development and community engagement. We are proud to be the home of contemporary culture within a heritage building, serving our local community and contributing to the cultural life of South Norwood and Croydon.

Our Vision

Stanley Arts aims to be one of South London’s premiere arts and performance venues, providing our local community with a vital home for cultural expression and discovery. As a radically inclusive space, we seek to welcome all audiences, with a particular focus on communities that have previously been excluded from creative spaces. We foreground under‑represented voices, providing artists of colour and LGBTQ+ creatives with a platform to reach out to audiences across South London and beyond.

Our vision is underpinned by three pillars, reimagined from William Stanley’s original mission of justice, liberty and science into:

• Radical inclusion
• Creative and cultural heritage
• Climate and sustainability

With a particular eye on the future, we embrace opportunities to create and share work in the areas of creative health and wellbeing, environmental responsibility and creative technologies.

Values 

Our three core values are:

• Representation – reflecting the communities we are based in
• Partnership – working with and truly hearing the communities we serve
• Democracy – embedding agency at every level possible

In summary – we care, we learn, we are ambitious

Our Community 

Stanley Arts welcomes all audiences and all artists, with a particular commitment to communities that have previously been excluded from creative spaces.

Our artistic family includes the widest range of artists working in dance, music, theatre, performance, comedy, visual arts, and crafts. We seek to give artists across these art forms the opportunity to grow through innovation, collaboration and participation.

We are proud to host and partner with a diverse group of thirteen resident companies and practitioners, including resident National Portfolio Organisations Boundless Theatre and ZooCo; as well as renowned hip-hop dance theatre company, BirdGang Ltd.

• We stand up for our family.
• We stand out from the crowd.
• We stand proud of our heritage.
• We stand together with our community.
• We stand for Stanley.

Our Programme

Stanley Arts is proud to present a year-round, high-quality artistic programme including our own in-house productions.  We continue to grow a community-focused engagement programme rooted in our Croydon home.  Alongside this we deliver a bespoke programme of artist development and support.  Building commercial activity and improving and using the wonderful resources of the building to ensure the venue’s future is also an essential part of our programme.  Since 2019, we’ve grown our audiences from 13,000 to 66,000 people annually and are proud to work with over 500 artists each year.

Sector Development

Stanley Arts is a key cultural hub for Croydon and South London. We are proud to be the lead organisation for Croydon’s ACE-funded Creative People and Places programme. We will be leading the consortium and team steering the delivery of £750,000 of arts activity and development, designed and delivered by the community, over the next three years, starting in April 2026.

We played a leading role in the delivery of Croydon’s year as London Borough of Culture 2023–24, hosting the steering group and delivering a substantial proportion of the programme’s events. Post the LBoC year we have continued to contribute to the thriving Croydon cultural ecosystem working closely with a range of sector partners including Croydon Creators and Makers, Queer Croydon and Croydon’s Creative Enterprise Zone.

Capital Development Programme

Investing in our physical home in South Norwood is essential.  The first two phases of our capital development programme were completed in 2025. Funding partners for these stages include; Historic England, NHLF, the Mayor of London and the AHF.

Looking forward, we are excited to be developing plans for a third phase of capital works which will see further investment in the accessibility and flexibility of our building and improved facilities for both artists and audiences.

With the inherent challenges of a Grade II-listed building, we recognise that not all spaces are currently accessible but, as we seek funding for capital improvements, expanding access across the site is at the forefront of our future development plans.

Our Facilities

Stanley Arts is two-thirds of the historic grade II listed Stanley Halls complex. Our buildings offer some of the most unique locations in South London. Our largest space is Stanley Hall. This stunning Art Nouveau venue can seat up to 300 for staged productions. Alternatively the hall can hold up to over 300 people standing for music and social events. There is also a beautiful bar in the Gallery, right next to the Stanley Hall. This space doubles as co-working, exhibition and cafe space in the daytime and is licensed, along with The Assembly Hall for legal wedding and civil partnership ceremonies.

The Assembly Hall is a charming upper hall at the bottom end of the Stanley Arts complex. Light and welcoming, it serves as a wonderful rehearsal and workshop space during the day and can also be used as an intimate event space for parties, small scale performances and gigs.

The Society Room is on the ground floor at the bottom end of the Stanley Arts complex. In the daytime it is a lovely bright space ideally suited to daytime rehearsals, meetings, conferences and classes. It can also be hired for small scale parties and catered events in the evenings.

Having recently invested in a new light and sound rig the space also doubles up as a fantastic studio space for music, theatre or dance.

Alongside these larger spaces there is also the Scene Dock – a quirky rehearsal and meeting space with an industrial look, and the Yard Bar– our outside summer bar at the back of the building.

With recent investment in the lighting, sound and AV infrastructure across the site we are very well equipped to support a huge range of different cultural events, from exhibitions to dance to music to theatre. A particular focus in recent years has been multi-art form events across the whole of our extraordinary site.