Guest & resident mentors
We are honoured to have the company of our guest and resident tutors during our cultural and artistic activity workshops and courses. They passionately share their specific knowledge with our small groups of participants, making each and every event something special to remember, and leaving every attendee with a new skill or working method aimed at helping them achieve a personal goal.
Creative Writing

Vanessa Gebbie
Vanessa Gebbie creates written works between 10 and 100,000 words in length which have won awards from Bridport and The Daily Telegraph (prose), The Troubadour Prize and The Sussex Prize (poetry) and The Paddon Award (non-fiction), among others.

Roz Morris
Roz Morris’ fiction has sold more than four million copies worldwide, as a novelist and ghostwriter for high-profile authors. She is a writer, fiction editor, journalist and the author of the Nail Your Novel series for writers. She has worked as a writers’ mentor for Cornerstones Literary Consultancy and a manuscript she doctored in early form won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. She teaches advanced self-editing for The Guardian.

Henry Hyde
An honours graduate in European History and languages from Sussex University, Henry’s interest in wargaming is firmly rooted in a passion for history. He has a special love of campaigns, the eighteenth century battles of Marlborough and Frederick the Great and siege warfare.
Drawing & Painting

Cecil Rice
Cecil Rice is a British artist living and working in the UK. He has been painting in watercolours and oils for over thirty years and represented by UK art galleries since 1985. Cecil exhibits regularly in the UK at galleries in London and the South of England but also further afield. Exhibitions have included solo shows in Cork Street, London, Red Dot Gallery, Wandsworth and Holt and many group and mixed exhibitions, too numerous to list.

David Barker
Working in various media David Barker’s interest in painting relates to creating the illusion of light in the landscape and most especially emphasising its effect on and through water. In addition to land and seascapes, his painting also reflects a lifelong study of architecture and of life drawing.

Sarah Sherwood
By the mid-90s Sarah Sherwood had graduated with her BA (Hons) in Graphic Design and left the UK to travel the world. Sarah’s passion for buildings and architecture inspired her to develop the highly distinctive black and white style that she is known for today. Her keen powers of observation allow her to create beautifully detailed drawings that are deeply evocative of the varied places she knows and loves.

Judith Parkes
Judith Parkes is a qualified teacher who fell in love with silk painting when she spent time studying art in Crete . Since then she has been producing scarves and shawls for sale as well as teaching groups of all ages and levels
Venetian Masks

Marco Bassi
With a degree in philosophy, the last thing Marco Bassi thought he would become was a master in the craft of mask making. But then, as we know, the best laid plans often fall by the wayside. Marco has dedicated much of his working life to papier mâché — understanding how papier mâché is made, from the beginning to the end of the process, using the application of traditional techniques and materials, supported by constant research and lively experimentation.