From back alley in Stockport to an old bank in Salford Precinct, GRIT Studios is breathing new life into the city’s creative heart.
On a grey Friday afternoon, Salford Precinct hums with the usual sounds of buses braking and the shuffle of market stalls being set up. It’s a place people pass through for errands, for lunch or quick stop at Poundland.
Tucked away amongst the bookmakers and takeaways, something different is happening. Inside the old bank on the corner, the lights are on, the walls are bright with colour, and you can hear laughing echoing from down the hall.
This laughter is GRIT Studios. A new creative hub that’s quickly becoming one of Salford’s most exciting spaces for local artists.
The moment you walk through the door, you can feel that this isn’t a sterile gallery or neatly curated exhibition space. It’s raw, busy, and bursting with ideas. Paintbrushes and paper scattered, frames lied for construction, and every room seems to tell a story about who’s working there.
“Salford has such a creative community, we could have filled this space ten times over.”
When I visited, Sophie Macaulay – one of GRIT’s founders – showed be around the space with a quiet pride that comes from building something from the ground up.
GRIT, she told me, wasn’t always like this. It began as a small back-alley studio in Stockport, little more than a passion project between her and her partner John.
“We knew about the chronic shortage of workshop spaces, especially affordable. So, John and I pulled our life savings and opened down a backstreet in Stockport.”
The two of them, a couple with widely different interests, decided to fuse them together in a way that made sense only to them.
“My husband John is very into football, Manchester music, and I’m very into like arts and crafts. We broke it down and came up with this idea of a live competitive painting event and started an event called Art Battle Manchester.”
What started as a playful experiment grew into a community, but with the hit of the COVID 19 pandemic they made the decision to take the idea further.
“The pandemic came and we went to a stop overnight, which is a big shock for both of us. We approached Stockport Council and said, ‘Look, we’ve got some experience of managing people and buildings. We’d love to open an art studio.’”
GRIT Studios isn’t just another creative space; it’s a statement of intent. In a city defined by resilience, working-class pride, and artistic rebellion, GRIT has carved out a place where creativity belongs to everyone. By transforming a disused bank in the middle of the Precinct into a thriving studio, the founders have created a hub that brings art back to street level.
Each room inside the old bank has its own character. Artists are friendly and social, sharing their materials and unused furniture to the studio. Sophie spoke about wanting the building to feel open, not like an exclusive club, but a home for creativity in all its messy, beautiful forms.
The sense of openness carries through to the artists themselves. I met Chloé Julia Smith, who was working on a project in one of the studios upstairs. She told me having a space like GRIT meant more than just having a roof over her head. It was being part of a community of hard-working artists.
“I know plenty of people who don’t feel welcome in gallery spaces and they came in here they’re like wow it’s just normal people and I’m like yeah most artists are actually normal people.”
It’s easy to see how that sense of belonging spreads. GRIT doesn’t just exist behind its doors, it’s spilling out into the surrounding area. Around the corner from the studio, next to the well-loved Mother Hubbard’s chippy, a new mural was completed adding a burst of colour brightening up an otherwise grey wall. It’s all part of their growing mission to transform Salford’s public spaces through art and they’re not stopping there.
Plans are already in motion for another mural on the Precinct toilets and Sophie told me they’re hoping to work on something bigger: a series of pieces in the underpasses, giving many artists the opportunity to have their work in the city.
“We want to put some benches and planters around too. If we can add some colour and greenery to brighten the area up.”
It’s a project that captures what GRIT stands for, taking something overlooked or dismissed and turning it into something worth celebrating.
Throughout the day, the studio was buzzing with an event with Walk the Plank, a Salford-based outdoors arts company. As part of 100 Years of Salford celebrations, Walk the Plank were using GRIT’s space to introduce their new portable stage, designed to pop up anywhere across the city for performances and public events.
They were canvassing opinion about where in the city events should be held and put on a brainstorming session asking Salforians which activities they would like to see and where.
Joining as everyone sat in a circle: artists, organisers, locals and a few curious visitors. The team handed out mock budgets and asked attendees to design out on imaginary event using their stage. What followed was equal parts chaos and creativity: wild ideas, big laughs, and an unmistakable sense of togetherness.
GRIT’s partnership with Walk the Plank made perfect sense. Both share an ethos that art should be something you can touch, join in with, and make your own. And in a place like Salford, where change is constant, and regeneration projects can often feel like they happen to people rather than with them, GRIT offers an antidote.
Sophie mentioned how they’ve already seen a diverse mix of people pass through their doors: young, old, painters, dancers, even some musicians looking for rehearsal space. Some stay short term, many stay longer. What unites them all is the desire to create something meaningful without having to leave their city to do it.
“Salford is such a creative space, there’s the need for space and there’s also the need for community.”
Walking through the main studio, watching the light catch the streaks of colour across the walls, it was striking how unusual it was to see something like this planted in the middle of the precinct, not in a polished cultural quarter, but among the everyday rhythm of Salford life.
People buying groceries, grabbing chips, catching buses and a few feet away, a group of artists shaping something vibrant and new.
That’s the quiet brilliance of GRIT Studios. It doesn’t hide behind gallery glass or wait for people to come looking for it. It puts itself right where it belongs. In the heart of the community.
And in doing so, it’s giving Salford something more than just murals or workshops. It’s giving it a pulse.
“We’re not going anywhere. We’re here, you know, we’re going to keep painting and we’re going to keep going” Sophie said.
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