Written by Paul Worrall | May 2026
I grew up in Nottingham. Left when I was thirteen — moved to the Fylde Coast, which is a very different proposition — but the city stayed with me. There’s something about Nottingham that gets under your skin. The Lace Market, the Castle Rock, the two universities, the music scene that produced more than its fair share of people who went on to do interesting things. It has always felt like a city with creative energy running through it.
So writing this guide feels personal in a way the other city guides on this site don’t quite replicate. I’m not a visitor assessing Nottingham from the outside. I’m someone who knows where Mansfield Road goes and what the Trent smells like after rain, writing about a city I haven’t lived in for over thirty years but still think of with genuine warmth.
I now run Discount Art Supplies — a price comparison platform used by over 36,000 UK artists every week — and spent nearly a decade before that running digital marketing for one of the UK’s biggest online art retailers. I’ve visited more art supply shops than most people have had hot dinners. Here’s my honest guide to the best ones in Nottingham.
If you’re planning visits to other cities, also check out our guides to the best art shops in Manchester and the best art supply shops in Sheffield.
1. Artworks Nottingham — Family-Run Art & Craft Supplies
Artworks is a family-owned and run arts and crafts business that has been established in Nottingham since 2005. It’s the kind of independent that keeps a creative city functioning — not the biggest shop, not the flashiest, but consistently stocked with what artists actually need and run by people who care about the materials they sell.
For anyone who grew up going to Shawe’s on Mansfield Road — which sadly appears to no longer be trading — Artworks is the natural successor as Nottingham’s go-to independent art supplies destination. The range covers the essentials across paints, paper, brushes, drawing materials and craft supplies, and the independent family-run model means you’re more likely to get genuine advice than a chain store script.
Supporting independents in art supplies matters. I watched what happened to the independent art retail sector during my decade at ARTdiscount — the pressure from online, the high street decline, the rising rents. The ones that survive do so because their community chooses them. Artworks has been in Nottingham for over twenty years. That’s worth something.
2. Bonington Art Shop — NTU Dryden Street
This one surprises people. Bonington Art Shop sits inside Nottingham Trent University’s School of Art and Design on Dryden Street — and it’s open to the public, not just students. Most people walk past it without knowing it exists. That’s their loss.
The range is genuinely good — card, paper, cartridge, acrylic, watercolour and spray paints, technical pens, sketchbooks, rendering pens, inks, stencils, canvas by the metre, quality oil paints and brushes, sculpting tools. The list is longer than you’d expect for a university shop, and the prices reflect the fact that students are the primary audience — which is to say, fair rather than premium.
The context makes it worth visiting in its own right. Bonington Gallery — one of the most respected contemporary art galleries in the East Midlands, founded in 1969 — is in the same building. Walking through an active art school, past students working on live projects, into a gallery showing the kind of ambitious contemporary programme that doesn’t usually exist outside London, is genuinely inspiring. And then buying your supplies on the way out feels entirely natural.
One important note: Bonington Art Shop is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm, during NTU term time only. Check before you make a special trip.
3. Nottingham College Art Shop — Stoney Street
The second university-adjacent art shop on this list — and worth including because it serves a slightly different audience to Bonington. Nottingham College’s newly refurbished Art Shop at the 25 Stoney Street campus is open to students and the public alike, stocking everything needed for courses, hobbies and creative interests.
Stoney Street itself is worth mentioning. It sits in the heart of the Lace Market — Nottingham’s Victorian warehouse district, now home to galleries, studios, independent restaurants and creative businesses. If you’re making a day of it in Nottingham, the Lace Market is the neighbourhood worth spending time in. The College Art Shop gives you a practical reason to be in the area alongside the cultural ones.
Prices are typically student-oriented and the range covers the essentials well. Worth checking opening hours before visiting as college shop hours can vary outside term time.
4. Hobbycraft Nottingham
Two Hobbycraft stores serve Nottingham — one at the Broadmarsh area and one at Lady Bay Retail Park on Meadow Lane — which tells you something about how well the brand serves this market. I’ll give the honest version rather than the snobbish one.
For everyday consumables — canvases, basic acrylics, sketchbooks, brushes, craft materials — Hobbycraft is hard to beat on convenience and price. My children go through art supplies at a rate that would alarm most people, and Hobbycraft regularly provides the answer when we need something quickly and don’t want to wait for online delivery. The range isn’t specialist, the staff aren’t always art experts, but the stock is reliable and the prices are fair.
For hobbyists, beginners and anyone buying in volume for classes or family use — Hobbycraft Nottingham earns its place on this list without apology. Check our paints and mediums deals page before you go — we sometimes find better prices online on the same lines.
5. The Works — Nottingham City Centre
The Works divides opinion in art circles and I understand why. It’s not a specialist art supplies shop. The range isn’t deep. But for basic materials at genuinely accessible prices — canvases, sketch pads, pencil sets, starter acrylic sets — it fills a real gap in the market.
What The Works does that nobody else does at the same price point is make art materials genuinely accessible to people who might otherwise not buy them at all. That matters. The art supplies industry can be intimidating and expensive. The Works removes both barriers simultaneously.
For parents, teachers and anyone experimenting with a new medium without wanting to commit serious money, The Works is a legitimate first step. It’s not where you’d go once you know what you’re doing — but it might be where you go to figure out that you love painting in the first place.
6. Debbie Bryan Studio and Shop — St Peter’s Gate
This one is different from everything else on this list — and deliberately so. Debbie Bryan is a Nottingham-based textile artist and designer whose award-winning studio, gallery and tearoom is now located at St Peter’s Gate in the city centre — having moved from its original St Mary’s Gate Lace Market home of fifteen years in 2024. The space sells original prints, handmade paper goods, stationery, ceramics, jewellery and craft materials alongside work from British and international makers, all curated with a genuine eye rather than bought in bulk.
Reviewers describe it as a delightful local gem — and that’s exactly right. It’s not an art supplies shop in the conventional sense. It’s a creative environment that inspires you and sells you things at the same time, which is actually a much harder thing to pull off than it sounds. The Lace Market location is perfect — the neighbourhood has a creativity and history that the shop reflects genuinely rather than performing.
For artists looking for inspiration alongside supplies — and sometimes that’s exactly what you need — Debbie Bryan is one of the most interesting stops in Nottingham. Worth an hour of your time.
A Note on Buying Online
Nottingham has a decent selection of art supply options — better than many cities of similar size, partly because of the two universities sustaining specialist demand. But for professional-grade materials, niche products or simply getting the best price, online remains the most practical option for most artists.
At Discount Art Supplies we compare prices across all the major UK retailers in real time — Cass Art, Jacksons, Crafty Arts, Amazon and more — so you can always check the best current price before committing to buying in store. And if you want to be notified when a specific product drops in price, the price drop alert on any product page does that automatically.
Nottingham has changed enormously since I left at thirteen. The Broadmarsh redevelopment, the tram network, the Castle renovation. But the creative energy of the place — the one that comes from having two universities, a proper music history and a population that’s always felt slightly prouder of being from Nottingham than the city’s profile perhaps warrants — that seems intact. Good city for artists. Always was.
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