About The Artyst
Syd Barrett was many things — musician, painter, visionary, Cantabrigian. But above all he was someone who played. Not in a trivial sense. In the deepest sense: someone who approached the world with curiosity, without a fixed destination, willing to experiment and be surprised.
That spirit is the founding conviction of The Artyst. We are a café, bar, and events space on Chesterton Road. But we are also something else: a place built around the idea that creativity and wellbeing are not separate things, and that play is the thread connecting them.
Syd & Cambridge
Roger Keith Barrett grew up in Cambridge, studied at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, and drew the city deep into his imagination. His Cambridge was psychogeographic — layered, strange, full of hidden connections between places and people and sounds.
With the approval of the Barrett estate, The Artyst is the world's only dedicated Syd Barrett heritage venue. We exhibit photography by Mick Rock and host events that take his legacy seriously — not as nostalgia, but as a living invitation to think and feel differently.
The Invysible College
Alongside the venue, we are building the Invysible College — a learning ecosystem that treats education the way Syd treated music: as something that should be alive, experimental, and yours. Three hundred capacities across six schools, open to everyone, gamified and physical and digital at once.
The café is the Porter's Lodge. Come in, have a coffee, and see what's here.
The two clubs
Arty Club — arts, creativity, expression. Meets on the ground floor. Open to everyone who wants to make things.
CURE Club (Cambridge Underground Research Exploratorium) — wellbeing, transformation, depth. Meets in the basement when it opens. The name says it all: there is something here worth finding.
We believe arts and wellbeing are inseparable. So are our clubs. £5 a month each.