The Vanguard Centre

The Vanguard Centre is a converted railway arch near Glasgow city centre. Just south of the Clyde, within 10 minutes walking distance of Central Station, our venue is well-situated and easy to reach.

Affectionately referred to as “Glasgow’s premier home for doing dangerous things in an underground bunker”, we offer regular classes and events for archery, blacksmithing, and HEMA in Glasgow. If it is an old, cool, and slightly dangerous activity, we are happy to teach it!

The instructors at the Vanguard Centre are experienced and well-recognised across the UK, Europe, and even further abroad.

We have our own indoor archery range! We can provide all the equipment you need to get started, and beginners are welcome at our weekly drop-in sessions.

Our sessions are typically quite busy, so we do ask that you book your place before coming to the session, to avoid any disappointment.

We have our own forge and workshop, so we can teach the ancient skill of blacksmithing. Get in touch by email or phone and book yourself a session to learn how to use fire and hammer to bend metal to your will.

We teach various forms of HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) including medieval and renaissance sword fighting, where we recreate these historical fencing systems from centuries-old textbooks written by fencing masters of the past. Come along to our weekly classes and learn how sword fighting was really done.

We can organise different types of experience parties (including stag, hen, and birthday parties), as well as group events and team-building events for businesses. What better way to bring a group of people together than by doing some archery or learning historical sword fighting skills?