The Dartington Hall Trust is a charitable company based near Totnes in South Devon.
The Trust occupies a thousand acre estate which was bought in the 1920’s by Leonard Elmhirst and his wife, the American heiress, Dorothy Whitney Elmhirst, as the base for an experiment in rural reconstruction.
This combined the introduction of new methods in farming and forestry, and the creation of related industries, with the promotion of the arts and crafts, the founding of a coeducational boarding school and other educational experiments, and the care and conservation of buildings and landscape.
The Elmhirsts restored the splendid but derelict medieval hall and courtyard, and Dorothy Elmhirst created a wonderful garden in the grounds. Many new buildings were also erected to house the various activities of the Trust, including the school and what has now become an independent College of Arts. The finest of these, High Cross House, is now home to the Trust’s archive and unique collection of 20th century art, much of it created at Dartington.
The aims of the Trust are at present realised through a number of arts programmes, notably the Dartington International Summer School and Dartington Plus, a major new enterprise in musical education and development for the South West in partnership with Dartington College of Arts and King Edward VI Community College (Totnes) and supported by the Arts Council England; by research, reflection and teaching on environmental and economic sustainability at Schumacher College; by social research and policy development on the protection of children; and by farming, forestry, conservation and retail enterprises.
Independent but complementary activities in the arts, crafts, education and social justice, notably the Dartington College of Arts, also take place on the estate, many of them offshoots of the Trust.
The spirit of Dartington is hard to capture but the aspirations which continue to inform the work of the Trust may be expressed as a respect for the natural world; the encouragement of human creativity, artistic, intellectual and practical; the promotion of learning by doing; and the attainment of the highest standards of performance and execution in all the activities undertaken or supported by the Trust.
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The Dartington Hall Trust is a registered charity no. 279756. Company no. 1485560. Registered Office: The Elmhirst Centre, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EL United Kingdom. Telephone 01803 847000; Fax 01803 847007;