Plan a visit
Discover an ordinary terraced house with an extraordinary hand-painted interior with a guided tour.
David Parr House is an ordinary terraced house with an extraordinary, hand-painted interior. Home to the Victorian working-class artist, David Parr and his family, the house is an example of Arts and Crafts workmanship layered with 20th-century social history.
Founded in 2014, David Parr House CIO preserves, shares and sustains the house for future generations. We present a dynamic programme of house tours, workshops, events and exhibitions and work with our research partners to uncover overlooked aspects of decorative arts history.
David Parr House is located at 184/186 Gwydir Street, Cambridge, CB1 2LW.
We are open Wednesday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm.
Visit the house, see what’s on and browse the shop.
Image Credit: Matthew Smith
Creative Programme
Our programme platforms creative practice across diverse and expansive disciplines. The House’s rich history, unique context, and closely held values of creativity, care, and integrity create opportunities for audiences and artists alike. Each year, we explore a theme inspired by the house and its collections, engaging artists, designers, and makers in meaningful conversations beyond its walls. Through exhibitions, collaborations, and artistic interventions, we demonstrate how the themes and values of David Parr House remain as relevant today as they were to those who lived here from the 1880s.
This year, our focus turns to the natural world, inspired by the motifs and values of David Parr and the wider Arts and Crafts Movement. In the face of an urgent climate crisis, we explore how art can educate, inform, and reimagine our relationship with nature. From commissioning climate-resilient garden design from Anna’s Flower Farm made possible with support from The Wolfson Foundation to Freddie Yauner’s Pollen Paintings, we examine new ways to engage with and find refuge in the natural environment, embedding Arts and Crafts values in daily life.
Freddie Yauner, Problems of Success (2025)
2024
Bettina Furnée, New Rules For A Fair Society (from Reality Rules 2012). Movable typesetting and printing with Caroline Wendling
Last year ‘Letter, Word & Text’ honoured David Parr’s painted schemes and Cambridge’s rich tradition of sign painting and text decoration. The programme featured an exhibition of selected works from The Rampant Lions Press, exploring its use of blackletter typefaces and connections to Parr’s designs. House Guests: Words to Live By; Words to Live With invited artists to reflect on the enduring power of words and consider the texts they would choose to live with and by.
2023
Fiona Curran, How The Data Arrange Themselves (2017)
The programme launched in 2023 with Textiles as the central theme, drawing inspiration from Mary Jane Parr, David’s wife, who worked as a ‘doubler’—a textile worker spinning cotton threads from home to create new yarns. This theme launched House Guests, an annual series of artistic interventions where contemporary creatives respond to the house’s heritage. Through textile-based works, we explored themes of making, domesticity, and the stories woven into the fabric of the house.
Future Programme
Going forward the programme will explore themes around journeys, maps and travel beginning with Richard Hopkins Leach 1814 walk from Windsor into Cornwall noting crafts and trades as he went, looking to the legacy of F R Leach & Sons and their work across the UK and untold story of the travelling artworkman. This reflections and explorations will be accompanied by personal, conceptual and creative journeys.
Support us
As an independent charity with no statutory funding, we rely on volunteers and generous donations from individuals, trusts, foundations and corporations to continue our work.
Help us continue to care for this extraordinary house, deliver our unique artistic programme and support our ongoing research. Find out how you can support us through volunteering, donations, regular giving and partnerships.
Makers & Artists
We collaborate with artists and makers who share the values and craftsmanship embodied by the David Parr House. Rooted in the principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement and a respect for slow, thoughtful, and sustainable making.
We have a vibrant community of makers whose work finds affinity with the House, celebrating artistry, craftsmanship, and the handmade.