Newcastle Arts Centre Limited was founded as an Arts Development company in 1981. Since then it has brought back to use a group of 9 abandoned buildings in the City Centre and has provided home for dozens of arts related companies. The Centre now has 89,000 visitors a year, making it one of the most active independent Art Centres in England.

The Centre shows Exhibitions, Music and some theatre. It has Studios making Music, Photography, Ceramics, Architectural Glass and Graphic Design. It has a Gallery, Performance Venue, Bar, Conference Rooms, and shops for Art Materials,Original Crafts, and Picture framing.

Opened in 1988 by Prince Charles and built on the site of a Roman MileCastle the Arts Centre provides space for cultural industries such as Watkinson Glass, Dave Fry Ceramics, Headliners youth training, Skimstone artistic media community and the North of England Art Club.

Projects include new exhibitions and the restoration of the Assembly House at 55/57 Westgate Road which will be open for Heritage Open Day and the 2015 Design Event Exhibition.

The gallery at the Arts Centre presents new exhibitions featuring both historic and contemporary work with a regional connection.

Newcastle Arts Centre has a central high street location only 100 metres from Newcastle Central Station and Metro. This popular and versatile group of historic buildings have been skillfully restored to provide a fully licensed theatre and exhibition facilities. The Centre can cope with up to 2,000 visitors per day and provide meeting space for as few as 20 up to a maximum of 200 people. Good acoustics and flexible lighting support good technical facilities in the Black Swan Venue, which has a fine cellar bar and provide bespoke party and wedding planning, as well as a programme of Salsa and cabaret evenings.

The Jazz Cafe on Pink Lane is part of this group of buildings and is open Tuesday -Saturday as a Cafe Bar with live music 3 nights per week.It reopened in 2014 after a complete refurbishment and is now Newcastle’s favourite Jazz Venue and a cosy place for an excellent breakfast or lunch.

Newcastle Arts Centre reopened on January 6th 2000 after an extensive upgrade which includes a full time Gallery and the region’s best art materials store. The Black Swan is available for hire as a venue for conferences, workshops , performance and private functions.

In 2012 a program of Art courses and workshops was launched with a continuously developing curriculum of educational adult learning courses being run in the Arts Center Studios.