smallworld was set up in 1999 by local volunteers whose own experiences of growing up in Keighley helped the idea of sustained broad range arts as community action to form.

smallworld is now a company limited by guarantee not having a share capital and is a registered charity.

Working primarily with young people, using arts to allow individuals to develop and communities to come together through celebration, creative activity & opportunity.  Over the years smallworld has worked on a variety of projects with young people from all over Keighley, concentrating on the densely populated urban areas, as a means of engaging young people at risk of never being creative.  A lot of work is on-going and as more young people are allowed access to arts, more interest develops and new projects are being planned and allowed to develop.

Plans of funding a permanent base came to fruition in June 2004 with the lease on a building being signed. The first part time paid, full time worked post was created in July 2004, to find more project funding and provide day to day administration.

After grit blasting the massive beams and walls of the ground floor and moving out  two hundred and fifty cubic meters of debris and rubbish, the walls where lime plastered and dividers positioned to create the space that is here now.

After eleven months of extreme work the first group to use the space came in April 2005.  On first opening the door there was no heating, as there was no funding to put any in! Fortunately, the nature of the building retains a reasonable amount of heat being under ground level at the rear, however, funding had to be found for heating, as not everyone thinks twelve degrees is warm enough to sit and work in.

The first group to be established was the Saturday Club, creative kids doing all kinds of arty stuff, from claymation and video production to gala floats and thanks to hard working volunteers is still going from strength to strength.

Early in 2006 a shiny new Reznor heater was fitted, now tropical heat could be created! More user groups where started and more people began using the building.

Not ones for blowing our own trumpet, but we now have the "best creative work space in the country". Without exception all the people that come to work in the space are lifted by it, thanks in part to the imagination of the volunteers that made it a reality and thanks in part to the structure and history of the building itself.