The Auld Toy Shop

The Auld Toy Shop

Front view of a historic shopfront in Ayr with three large stone arches framing wide windows and a central entrance. The building is painted teal at street level, with upper-storey sash windows above. A large black-and-white photograph is displayed in the left window, while people can be seen gathering inside the building. Outdoor café-style tables and chairs sit in front of the right-hand window, and the façade combines traditional stone detailing with a newly activated community space.

Narture began in June 2020, founded by artist father-and-daughter team Robert and Saskia Singer. The organisation was established on the belief that everyone is an artist and that creativity has the power to transform communities.

What started as a project occupying empty town centre spaces has grown into a social enterprise rooted in food, creativity and wellbeing. Today, Narture is helping to bring new life to Ayr’s High Street by transforming derelict buildings into places where people can make, learn, gather and grow.

The Auld Toy Shop is a year-long Culture Collective project that is transforming a much-loved former toy shop in Ayr into a living space for creativity, connection and community-led change. For more than 35 years, the shop was woven into the lives of local families before standing empty for the past 12 years. Through this project, Narture aims to honour the building’s history while exploring what a creative future for Ayr could look like.

Working alongside socially engaged artists, local residents will take part in creative conversations, workshops, exhibitions, shared meals, interviews and public events that use food and creativity as tools for connection. Rather than delivering a predetermined programme, the project is a process-led enquiry that invites people to collectively imagine and shape the future of both the building and the town.

The Auld Toy Shop, 25 Newmarket St, Ayr KA7 1LP