Founded by Irene and her husband Gilbert Champernowne in 1942, the Withymead Centre was one of the first therapeutic communities in Great Britain to be based on Jungian principles. It promoted psychological healing through the arts and psychotherapy. Essentially, the value of art in fostering inner health.

Irene had the idea of the Centre in 1936, when she was doing psychotherapeutic work with H G Baynes. When Irene and Gilbert were bombed out of London in early March 1941, during the Second World War, Irene wrote to Dorothy Elmhirst on 9 March 1941, saying they were looking for a place in Exeter where they could link psychotherapy and education.

Withymead was a large Georgian house with outbuildings and stables on the edge of a mill stream, two and a half miles from the centre of Exeter. Withymead was supported, including financially, by friends and colleagues of the Champernowne's.

From 1942 to 1954, it welcomed 240 fee-paying adults. Expansions and extensions were undertaken, and residents worked on those projects. As well as resident patients, visitors were welcomed, and lectures and conferences provided.

Withymead struggled financially, and the with death of Gilbert in 1959 and with the new NHS requiring registration and oversight by medical practitioners, the Centre faced many challenges . All of the the Trustees resigned in 1960 with the stated intention of allowing Irene Champernowne to find Trustees with whom she could work. However disagreements continued and finally Irene Champernowne stepped down from being a Trustee and sold her portion of the Withymead Centre. The Withymead Centre closed in 1967.