Barrow-in-Furness sits on a windswept hook of Cumbrian coastline. It’s an industrial town surrounded by the Irish sea on three sides, known for its 140-year history of submarine building. The corrugated peaks of BAE Systems’ Dock Hall dominate the skyline over Barrow’s red-brick terraces, and roughly a third of working-age locals are employed in its sprawling complex. This militarised landscape is the unlikely home of Full of Noises, an experimental music and arts venue with a capacity of 40 whose first event featured krautrock legends Faust destroying an electric guitar with a pneumatic drill.
Having secured funding to launch a two-day festival in 2009, artistic director Glenn Boulter and four other local artists took on temporary custodianship of the crumbling canteen building on wind-lashed Barrow Island, “a building that’s part of this big military-industrial complex,” Boulter says. “It’s heavily security-controlled.” He recalls a game they would play on a nearby bridge, where they would pull their phones out as if to take photos and count the seconds until they were accosted by security. “For us, that was an interesting context to be working in.”
The paradox of existing in this highly surveilled complex was that its far-flung location offered a rare kind of creative freedom: there was no established scene to satisfy. “You could do anything because no one was really bothered or looking,” says Boulter. That first festival with Faust set the tone – “big German men banging on an oil drum and setting fire to stuff” – and brought together a group of local ex-submariners to perform Kurt Schwitters’ dadaist poetry in morse code.
Full of Noises kept moving around, “commissioning work, drawing on the town’s history, architecture and communities”, and 16 years later, now has a permanent home in Piel View House, a former park keeper’s lodge perched on a hill in Barrow Park. Its traditional red brick facade has been expanded with a Scandi-esque black cuboid extension, which houses an acoustically engineered space with pristine white interiors and high rectangular windows that frame the surrounding tree canopy. It has hosted stand-out names in experimental and improvised music, from LA-based Tashi Wada and Julia Holter to Marisa Anderson and Jim White. At the end of 2025, Lonnie Holley played to a room of 40 people here, having performed at London’s 1,500-capacity Roundhouse a week earlier. Beyond concerts, the venue hosts film screenings and creative workshops, and has welcomed artists-in-residence including Lee Gamble. “We’ve always enjoyed the challenge of putting on this kind of work in a place that’s fairly small and isolated,” says Boulter.
I spend two days at the venue getting to know the team during Independent Venue Week, as they prepare for a cohort of graduates from London College of Communication (LCC), who are travelling up to showcase their work.
“When I was touring, I remember sleeping on astroturf in someone’s kitchen,” venue programmer Amy Stretch-Parker tells me as she cooks the meal for the night. She wants to make sure the venue feels like a “home away from home”, and cooks a communal meal for every visiting artist. “No matter who’s performing, everyone’s treated the same,” she adds. The upstairs of the venue is set for further renovation dependent on funding, which will include bedrooms for visitors and artists-in-residence.
This care and programming is sustained by a unique financial model. Full of Noises holds a 25-year lease on a peppercorn rent from the local authority, who supported redevelopment over demolition. Arts Council England (ACE) funding covers the majority of their overheads, and Barrow’s recent designation as an ACE Priority Place has been transformative. “It meant being able to access money for the building and increasing our funding enough to have a proper team,” says Boulter. Additional funding from the local authority, trusts and foundations allows this arts and culture hub to host more than 60 events a year, most priced at just £5 or pay-what-you-feel. “It’s about being really open and welcoming to anyone that wants to engage with us.”
At seven o’clock on this damp January evening, Full of Noises comes to life. The LCC graduates have set up an array of hardware – modular synthesisers, contact mics, even children’s toys. Around 20 people file in, order drinks from Boulter, bartender for the night, and take their seats. One performer, Sanki, captivates the audience with an illuminated tank of water and metal chains to produce sub-aquatic, mechanical distortions that vibrate the walls and feel fitting considering our surroundings.
After the show, I get chatting with a local regular, who tells me to look up Caliban’s speech in The Tempest if I want to understand the venue’s name. “Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises / Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.” It’s a fitting parallel – the team behind Full of Noises having found their own enchantment in Barrow’s isolation. “As an artist, it’s just a really unusual, interesting place to be,” says Boulter. “An unlikely place where excellent art can happen.”
