Dartington
Cider Press
Shopping Centre

Best Shopping in Devon

Opening Hours

Mon-Sat 9.30am - 5.30pm
Sundays 10am - 5pm

Our story begins in 1925 when two individuals, Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst, sharing a vision of a revitalised countryside, purchased an ancient estate: Dartington Hall upon whose lands the Cider Press Centre stands. At Dartington, they supported initiatives across a wide range of endeavours, from education to local employment, research and the arts. They started a school and a College of Arts, made a now famous garden and launched at Dartington – using the beautiful fourteenth century Courtyard as its base – the renowned Dartington International Summer School of Music. Dozens of other projects were initiated: experiments in forestry, a textile mill in 1930s, Dartington Glass in North Devon.

In the mid seventies, their successors, the Dartington Hall Trustees, decided to open a retail centre on a site alongside the Bidwell Brook where Bernard Leach had constructed a pottery and written: ‘A Potters Book’. Here also, in the thirties, the Trust formerly manufactured apple juices – predecessors of all the millions of cartons now sold, and the Dartington Cider. It is because of this history of pottery and cider production that we sell crafts and are called Dartington Cider Press Centre even though actual cider making ceased here fifty years ago. Dartington Cider Press Centre sells a range of craft work, books, fine foods, Dartington Crystal, garden plants and other objects for the home. On site there is also a Cranks wholefood restaurant and a shop selling children’s toys. We sell these things because we care about quality: the quality of a locally made cheese no less than a hand-thrown jug.

At the Centre we strive to ensure that our trade is ethical, as well as fair, in that it supports neither exploitation nor environmental degradation, that it helps the local community and the profits of any purchase are beneficially spent. All profits from the Centre are covenanted to the Dartington Hall Trust and are used to support a wide variety of charitable activities – enabling, for example, trees to be planted, Third World students to study, or a city based youth orchestra to visit Dartington and perform in its Great Hall. At Dartington we believe you cannot have a commitment to values unless this extends beyond the products sold and to how these profits are spent

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Cider Press Centre is operated by The Dartington Trading Company Limited, a company registered in England (Reg No. 1218378) (VAT No. 402196875). Registered office: Elmhirst Centre, Dartington Hall, Dartington, Totnes TQ9 6EL. The Dartington Trading Company is a subsidiary of The Dartington Hall Trust, a registered charity