New café to open at The Beacon supported by local volunteers

Published Thursday 10 April 2025

The Beacon in Wantage will once again have a café thanks to the support of volunteers from the Wantage Literary Festival.

Vale of White Horse District Council, who own and manage the Beacon, has been working on different options to re-introduce a café or refreshment area to The Beacon, after the previous café closed in 2020.

Last autumn, as part of their month of events at The Beacon, the Literary Festival volunteers managed a café area for the audiences coming to see their shows.

It proved so popular that the two organisations have agreed to work together to run a café from The Beacon starting on Friday 25 April. It will be open Monday to Friday* 9.45am-1pm.

The Brews and Books café will be run on a pilot basis until the end of October (which will include the next Literary Festival performances), and the festival team and Beacon staff will then review how the pilot has gone.

The café will be open for everyone to use not just those who are attending shows and classes at the centre.

Phil Barker, Head of Service for Communities at Vale of White Horse District Council said: “I’m really pleased we’ve been able to partner with Wantage Literary Festival to provide this much missed coffee area at The Beacon.

“We’re grateful to their volunteers for giving their time to support us and look forward to our continued partnership as hosts of their annual Literary Festival in the autumn and other community activities they will host in the future.

“The Beacon means different things to different people, and as well as being a location for classes, workshops and great entertainment we want it to be somewhere that people feel welcome to pop in and meet with others, especially if they are book lovers! The success of this pilot and the future of the café will rely on the community to support The Beacon and the festival volunteers over the coming months.”

Judith Knight, Director for Wantage Literary Festival said: “The cafe originally started as a small add-on for the wonderful festival, but we all saw the joy it brought to the people of Wantage.

“This year, we want to give more opportunity for people to bond over book swaps, book clubs, festival events and more. That’s why volunteers are so important as they become a big part of bringing the community together, even by giving a few hours of their time every month or fortnight. It is wonderful to see local people come together over a love of literature, and we all look forward to having some tea and cake in the new Brews and Books.”

Money raised from the café will help the festival cover the costs of its annual event and enable them to continue to attract great authors to the town.

You can find out more about the festival on the official website.

Notes for Editors

*The Café will also be open on Saturday 26 April for the Health and Wellbeing event taking place at The Beacon from 12-4pm.

In 2020 The Beacon like many arts venues had to close due to the pandemic. When it reopened, the café at the centre remained closed as it was no longer financially viable for Vale of White Horse, who own and manage The Beacon, to continue running.

Please see a picture attached from Wantage Literary Festival when they hosted the café for their event in the autumn last year.