About Us
What we do
Here at Children’s Scrapstore, we have many facets and services that are all focussed towards one goal: to reuse and recycle scrap, encourage art and creativity, and to improve and champion play for all. The main components of our team are our Play Team, who run external play sessions and install PlayPods at schools across the country, the Scrapstore, where you can find and take home scrap, Events, which include weekly Messy Play and School holiday sessions, and the Artshop, where anyone can buy art and craft supplies. You can find a bit more out about each of them here!
Our Monthly Impact
At Children’s Scrapstore, we aim to improve and contribute to three main sectors: play, art, and reuse. We’re proud to say that, with the support of our customers and community, we divert as much waste away from landfill as we can to be reused every month, and provide play opportunities for children and young people all over the country. Find our monthly statistics below for total waste reused monthly and yearly, and children impacted by our services.
Our Journey in Bristol
We were first founded by Friends of the earth in 1982 and were first located in a very small space in Brislington. The next stop on our journey was Bedminster where we stayed for a few years before moving to Welsh Back. Finally, in 2002, we settled here at what was formerly known as The Proving House. Now it is known as Scrapstore house, and is our central location for all of our activities and events!
The Proving House
Ou current location was previously known as The Proving House, and used to be one of a chain (pun intended) of factories owned by Mark Priest that made chains. The family sent their sons to Bristol to continue the buisness here due to the booming trade and port. In the 1850’s, these chains were used with anchors on large ships that brought over palm oil and tobacco from the West Indies. The master of the vessel and the first mate would come to the factory and settle the bill with gold. Towards the end of the 19th century, machines producing high quality chains were being developed abroad, making business here much harder. However, the Priest family business did continue into the 1900’s, producing chains and metal work into WW1. In 1942, the Bristol business came to an end, and the building was sold on for other use. In the early 2000’s, we acquired the building and the rest is history!
Top of the Swaps
One of the joys of scrap is that many Scrapstore from all over the country get together to swap different items and materials with each other, so that everyone is able to have unique and interesting scrap from different sources! This also means that Scrapstores can continue to accept regular items as they can be shared out amongst different Scrapstores. Some Scrapstores we swap with regularly are Gloucester (who share card tubes and cable reels), Milton Keynes (who share wooden speaker discs), Exeter (who share tuelle and yarn cones), Wiltshire (who share stripy tubes), Dorset (who share Lush tins and coloured foam), Cornwall (who share coloured acetate), and Swindon (who share golf ball barrels). Multi swaps, where lots of Scrapstores get together at once, means that there is a plethora of scrap to share, and all the Scrapstores involved can connect with each other.
Playpods
You may already know that we our Play Team creates Scrapstore PlayPods to be installed in schools all over the country, which allows children to engage in loose parts and creative play. This grew out of a research project in 2007, that wanted to address the need for high quality, freely chosen, child directed play opportunities in Primary Schools. The results of this project were extraordinary and create a huge interest from other schools and settings. Since then, the programme has grown to be nationally recognised, and over 500 Scrapstore PlayPods have been installed, allowing over 200,000 children to access quality playtime experiences on a regular basis.