Gosport Art and Tea Trail: a gentle day trip

If you are looking for a low-key weekend plan that does not involve a long drive, the Gosport Art and Tea Trail is an easy one to build a day around. It runs from today, Thursday 15 October, through to Sunday 18 October, and the whole idea is a gentle stroll across the water from Portsmouth, combining local art galleries, studios, cafes and tea stops into a single curated route. It is a one-off event, so it only comes around once a year, and it is built for wandering rather than rushing.

The scale of it is what surprises you. There are more than 60 local artists involved, ranging from hobbyists making their public debut to experienced professionals, with their work spread across more than 30 studios, cafes and other venues. Because the artists are all local, you get a genuine sense of what is being made in and around Gosport, and the mix of spaces — a studio here, a cafe there — means the art sits alongside a cup of tea or a slice of cake rather than behind a gallery wall.

Behind the scenes, the trail is the work of The Art Pack, a collective of seven artists based in and around Gosport — Tracy Evans, Al Warner, A Warner, Emma Trickle, Chris Bayliss, Ros Johnson, Helena Heath and Tonia Redvers — who came together in 2022 to support each other's creative practice and raise the profile of local artists. The event is supported by Hampshire Cultural Trust with additional funding from Arts Council England. There is a poignant note to this year's edition as well: a spokesperson for The Art Pack paid tribute to Gary Moore, one of their artists and a friend, who sadly passed away the week before the trail; his work will still be shown at venue seven on the route.

There is a bit of incentive to keep moving, too. If you visit more than three venues, you can enter a prize draw to win a signed book from the acclaimed street artist My Dog Sighs. To get your bearings, physical copies of the trail route map are available to pick up from Port & Lemon in Stoke Road, the Daily Grind coffee van at the Gosport Ferry Terminal, and many of the other participating venues, so you do not have to rely on your phone the whole way round.

Getting there is half the charm. The ferry departs from the pontoon at Portsmouth Harbour, right next to the train station, and the crossing takes just over four minutes, which saves you a 14-mile journey by road. The ferry runs from 05:30 to midnight every day, with services every 15 minutes and every 7.5 minutes during peak times, so it is easy to turn up whenever suits you. Bicycles and motorcycles can go on board, and dogs are welcome as long as they are kept on a lead. For the full line-up of artists and venues, the trail's social media pages — facebook.com/GosportArtandTeaTrail and instagram.com/gosportarttrail — are the places to check before you set off.