Launch Event - The Auld Toy Shop | Destination South Ayrshire

Launch Event – The Auld Toy Shop

Exterior view of an empty front shop with people standing in front of the entrance.

Join us to launch a new food and arts project aiming to bring one of Ayr town centre’s most fondly remembered buildings back into use.

Narture CIC – a community arts and food social enterprise based in the town – is taking over the former Beatties Toy Shop on Newmarket Street for the Auld Toy Shop, a project dedicated to creativity, play, skills development, and town centre regeneration.

By bringing people together in an iconic historic building, the Auld Toy Shop reimagines an empty shop as a place for creativity, connection and collective imagination. Through arts, food and community participation, the project aims to demonstrate how vacant buildings can become catalysts for cultural participation, civic pride and long-term regeneration.

For many people in Ayr and beyond, a toy shop holds joyful memories of childhood, family, imagination and wonder. Narture CIC now intends to honour that memory by reopening the building not simply as a shop but as a living civic space where the public can help imagine the future of the town.

On Friday, July 31, the Narture team will host a launch event at 25 Newmarket Street, Ayr from 4pm until 8pm to invite interested local people to see what is happening with the Auld Toy Shop and discover how they can get involved in the project. Visitors can find out about free workshops, volunteering and paid opportunities and more. There will be displays about town centre regeneration and interactive activities for visitors. The launch event is open to all.