The Stanley Spencer Gallery is unique, being the only gallery in Britain devoted exclusively to an artist in the village where he was born and spent most of his life. Spencer was strongly influenced by the river and his religious beliefs, and the gallery occupies the former Victorian Methodist Chapel where Spencer was taken as a child to worship.

At the end of September 2007, a year after closing for an £800,000 total refurbishment, the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham, Berkshire, reopened to the public.

The gallery opened in 1962 as a memorial to the artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) who had been born and worked for much of his life in the village. He now has international stature and is widely recognised as one of the most important British artists of the 20th century.

Run entirely by volunteers, the gallery holds a fine collection of more than 120 works. Renovations in the gallery, a former Methodist chapel used by Spencer as a child, now allow more works to be displayed at any one time.

The reopening exhibition is called 'That Sacred Piece of Ground,' and shows 47 paintings and drawings; the title a reference Spencer himself made to the old chapel. A new acquisition now on show is called 'Ecstasy in a Wesleyan Chapel', drawn from memories of Spencer's childhood.