Devon Strings Workshop

14/05/2025

Newark is the most important school of instrument making and restoration in this country, and one of the very last surviving. It is also one of the most highly regarded schools in the world.

Now it is under serious threat.

Without the Newark School of Violin Making, Devon Strings Workshop would not exist. This is true for a great many other workshops in the UK, and around the world. It is an important pillar supporting our culture, and those of other countries around the world.

We could say a lot more, but we would like to keep our appeal to sign this petition concise. Please sign this petition, and feel free to comment and ask questions below.

Jon, Becky and James

Save the Newark School of Musical Instrument Crafts!

09/10/2024

This Friday Wren Music will be hosting a concert, talk and workshop celebrating the music of William Andrew, Dartmoor fiddler, collected in the 19th century by Sabine Baring-Gould.

This weekend, we're holding two unique events as part of the Baring-Gould Centenary programme ...

On Friday night, at Church Hall in Okehampton, we're hosting the Fiddle Tunes of William Andrews (see earlier post below for more details about this evening in three parts). You can book your place through our website: https://www.wrenmusic.co.uk/event/tunes-of-william-andrews

And all day on Saturday, we're recreating the story of the bellringing contest in The Devon Bellringing Song, visiting the bell towers mentioned in the lyrics. It will be a coach trip with bells on! There's more information and a booking link, here: https://www.wrenmusic.co.uk/event/one-day-in-october

These events are complete one-offs and promise to be something quite special!

04/08/2024

Devon Strings have temporarily relocated to Blackmore Gardens, Sidmouth for Sidmouth Folk Week.
Come and visit us! We're open everyday (including Sunday) from 10am to at least 6pm.

19/07/2021

Visiting Devon Strings after the 19th of July 2021

In the continued interest of customer and staff safety we ask you to follow the procedures below when visiting us:
* Please make an appointment. We will see you by appointment only. Appointments are available from Wednesday to Saturday each week, commencing at 10am.
* Please minimise the number of people attending. Children will need an adult to help them. Adults may need one other person to provide a second opinion regarding tone.
* Please can you do us the courtesy of wearing a face covering when you visit. We will repay the courtesy. Basic disposable masks will be available if you have forgotten your washable face covering.
* Please use the hand sanitiser provided on arrival. If you wish to try instruments or bows hand sanitiser will be available to use between each instrument or bow.
* Please maintain a two metre distance from all those from outside of your own household. As our new shop is so much more spacious than our old one this should not be a problem.
* Instruments and bows will be cleaned after appointments. Those that have been tried will initially be tagged, so that we can easily identify those waiting to be cleaned. Please do not pick up an instrument, bow etc... without checking with us first.

We would like to thank all of our customers for complying with these measures since we first reopened in June 2020. To date they have been very effective in keeping us all safe, and we hope that their effectiveness continues.
Jon, Becky and James

23/04/2021

26/10/2020

We are reopening!

Our daughter's self isolation ends tomorrow, Tuesday the 27th of October, we also received her negative test result yesterday! None of us have experienced any Covid-19 symptoms during our voluntary period of self isolation.

We shall be reopening the shop this Wednesday, the 28th of October.

Please feel free to contact us at [email protected] to make an appointment, or with any queries.

Thank you for your support during this difficult time,
Jon, Becky and James

20/10/2020

Temporary Closure:

Following a positive test for Coronavirus within our daughter's primary school bubble, we haved decided to temporarily close the shop.

By lucky chance our daughter had already been randomly chosen by the government for a Covid-19 test. Depending on the result of this test we may be able to open sooner than might otherwise be expected. Please keep an eye on our website for further updates.

If you have any queries please feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Thank you for your patience and understanding,
Jon and Becky

22/06/2020

THURSDAY 25TH JUNE
The shop will be closed all day on Thursday 25th June so that I can attend a funeral.
I am still able to arrange appointments for Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of this week, from 10am onwards.
Apologies for any inconvenience caused.
All the best,
Becky

17/06/2020

It's been wonderful to have our lovely shop open again from today!
We have plenty of space for keeping social distancing measures here at our new shop. We are currently running it on an appointment basis from Wednesdays to Saturdays from 10am. If you would like to arrange a time to visit us, whether this be to discuss having an instrument repaired, having strings fitted, or to look at buying instruments, bows, cases or accessories, you can either send us a message, email us at [email protected] or phone us on 01392 433748.
We hope that you are all keeping well and look forward to seeing you all again!