By Jill Stocks
Tucked away just off Low Lane in Horsforth there is a building that’s a hive of activity behind its closed doors. Priding itself as “a place to connect, converse and create.”
Horsforth Shed, situated next to St James Woodside Church, is a thriving community project, where people can learn new skills and meet new people in a welcoming environment.
And their work was recognised with a Heart of Horsforth Award, with the project taking home the prize in the Community category for “their hard work creating a usable, better-insulated building for people with diverse needs to make and mend projects using wood and other materials”.
As well as running drop in sessions twice a week they also offer specialist support for those with particular challenges, support for school students from specialist schools where there are no facilities of that type available, and sessions working alongside the Lighthouse community, based at St George’s Crypt, which helps individuals “battered and bruised by the storms of life.”
All of the sessions there are geared to two main aims of “making things and making friends”.
Paula Riess is a pastoral support worker for the Lighthouse charity.
“Lighthouse West Yorkshire is a Christian community for people who’ve been hit by the storms of life. Struggles with mental health, homelessness and addiction. We accompany a group of people here every Friday.
“They get to do some woodwork, learn some new skills, and have a safe space to develop themselves, have community, have a loving environment where they can grow.
“I haven’t got any professional experience in terms of woodwork so I’m learning alongside them and then try to support them with what I’ve learned.”
Horsforth Shed was born in 2019 when St James Church decided to repurpose the old scout hut as a community shed, and after two years of renovations, including dealing with damp, fixing electrics, repairing the leaky roof and sorting out lighting.
The hut was filled with equipment and work benches, as well as the all important social area for refreshments and a chat, and opened in July 2021.
The project has gone from strength to strength and in the not too distant future recruitment will begin for a full-time shed manager.
Shanjan Usman uses the services at Horsforth Shed.
“It’s an amazing thing,” he said. “And I think that it’s very important for these places to exist, especially for those who are needing rehabilitation and therapy.
“At the moment we don’t have enough trades and skills so that’s why I would say it’s important. We need more of this as a country.”
The Shed also supports the local community, providing bug hotels and little free library boxes to local primary schools and supporting the Walk Of Art, and in 2024 their biggest project was creating the building which houses Horsforth Community Pantry.
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