The Biscuit Factory takes its gallery to Northumberland for the first time

For almost 25 years The Biscuit Factory has been a home for artists and makers in Newcastle's Ouseburn. This autumn, for the first time, it is taking its gallery beyond the city, with a new partnership with Ad Gefrin, the RIBA award-winning distillery and Anglo-Saxon museum in Wooler, north Northumberland.

The partnership opens with Modern Classics, running at Ad Gefrin from Friday 23 October to 13 December 2026, with free entry. It brings together work by Paula Dunn, Angelo Murphy and Garry Courtnell, exploring light and atmosphere, the everyday and the elemental. Each artist uses traditional techniques to create distinctly contemporary pieces, and Paula Dunn will be at Ad Gefrin on the opening day for an In Conversation event.

Ad Gefrin describes the partnership as rooted in shared values. "Whether creating a work of art or making whisky, there is an understanding of material and process, of patience and skill, and of the importance of allowing something to develop over time," it says.

The Biscuit Factory's own story is rich in history. The site dates back to 1733, and the main building was constructed around 1860. From the late 1870s until the early 1900s it was the Tyne Biscuit Factory, baking "fashionable biscuits of the day", before later life as a wallpaper warehouse and a carpet and kitchen showroom. In 2001 it was sympathetically transformed into an art gallery, keeping its exposed beams and brickwork and adding a treble-height atrium that floods the headline exhibition space with daylight.

Today the gallery shows work by more than 250 artists, hand-selected by its curators, and welcomes over 50,000 visitors a year. Visitors can browse paintings, sculpture, prints, ceramics, textiles and jewellery, from experienced collectors to first-time buyers. The lower floors house 25 studios for resident artists, and the gallery's own charity, The Biscuit Factory Foundation, helps emerging artists develop their careers.

Back in Ouseburn, the autumn headline artist is Shirley Vauvelle, an East Yorkshire-based maker whose playful hand-built ceramics draw on nature, found objects and museum collections. There is also an independent bookshop, the rooftop Factory Kitchen cafe and The Garden Room, a wedding and events space inspired by Victorian winter gardens that opened in 2024.

Exhibition details for both Newcastle and Ad Gefrin are on The Biscuit Factory website.