Swindon & Wiltshire News
Bristol’s Engine Shed says it will close in shock announcement
In a shock announcement, Bristol’s Engine Shed has announced it will close at the end of this year after 13 years of supporting innovators, entrepreneurs, and researchers in the city.
The Engine Shed team will ‘transition’ to run the new Bristol Innovations Zone in the new, main academic building in the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, which will open in September 2026, a spokesperson said.
Engine Shed was conceived in January 2013 and opened its doors in December in the same year.
Known across the country and internationally as Engine Shed, the building serves as a “hub for innovation,” providing workspaces, meeting rooms, event space, and a home for the SETsquared Bristol Incubator.
The hub was based in 30,000 sq ft of Grade I listed building next to Temple Meads station, and was originally designed by Brunel, including offices, drawing rooms, and the station master’s quarters. It functioned as a workshop to service engines and contained railway tracks.
Once its railway life came to an end, the building housed The Exploratory science centre (1989–1999) and the Empire and Commonwealth Museum (2002–2009) before becoming an innovation hub and ‘incubator of incubators’ in 2013.
