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Heritage Crafts was set up just fourteen years ago. Since then it has gone from strength to strength, advocating at the highest levels for crafts, researching and publishing the Red List of Endangered Crafts, distributing 66 grants through the Endangered Crafts Fund and bringing crafts together in a series of conferences, forums and seminars.
We have awarded 30 training bursaries, established the Heritage Crafts Awards and shone a spotlight on our world-renowned makers through 30 National Honours successes. These are just some of the highlights of what has been achieved. Many more people are now aware of traditional crafts and the objects produced by those who carry in their hands, heads, and also hearts the skills and techniques that have been passed down through the generations.
To continue this work we need your support. Please consider making a donation, however big or small, to help ensure that heritage craft skills in the UK are given the opportunity to thrive.
If you would like to help us achieve these aims, please use the form below to donate.
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Living Legacies – 13 May 2026, 11am to 4.30pm
Leathersellers’ Hall, 7 St Helen’s Place, London EC3A 6AB
Heritage Crafts, @theleathersellers and @saddlerscompany.saddlershall are delighted to be collaborating on Living Legacies, a unique celebration of some of the UK’s most endangered craft traditions. This day-long showcase brings together master makers, heritage experts and the public to explore rare skills – from passementerie and pigment making to shoemaking and falconry furniture making.
This is a pop-in exhibition, open between 11am and 4pm, with the opportunity to hear from practising makers, and for visitors to ask questions and experience these crafts up close. At 3.30pm, Mary Lewis, Head of Craft Sustainability at Heritage Crafts, will offer insights into the state of endangered crafts today.
Discover the living heritage of the UK’s craft traditions – and the people keeping them alive.
Book for free at https://londoncraftweek.com/events/living-legacies-endangered-crafts-in-the-uk or via the linktr.ee in our bio.
Our Staying Alive exhibition in partnership with @makesouthwest is now open until 4 July at Make Southwest, Riverside Mill, Fore Street, Bovey Tracey, Devon TQ13 9AF.
This exhibition shines a light on some of the Southwest’s most endangered crafts.
Fourteen master makers share their skills, tools, and stories, showing how traditions shaped by the region’s land and sea still have relevance and beauty today. From boatbuilding and ropemaking to hedging, basketmaking and tanning, these crafts connect past and present, keeping centuries of knowledge alive in the modern world.
• Find out about visiting the exhibition
• Experience the exhibition remotely on Bloomberg Connects
• Book onto one of the events, including ‘Signwrite your own ornate letter’ with @amy.goodwin.signwriter, ‘Make a ditty bag’ with Sue Liscoe, ‘Make a flax corn dolly’ with @flax_project, and ‘Make a willow crab pot’ with @crabpotcellars
• Hear talks with some of the exhibitors at Craft Festival Bovey Tracey, 12 to 14 June 2026
• Buy an A2 poster of the exhibition map illustrated by @illustratedbyverity
https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/our-stories/staying-alive-exhibition/ or via the linktr.ee in our bio
Three years of making, heritage and creativity come together this May at @kelmscottmanor
Over the past three years, @heritagecrafts , @socantiquaries and @kelmscottmanor have hosted a successful Maker in Residence programme, inviting contemporary makers to explore living craft traditions in the former home of William Morris.
This May, work by all three Makers in Residence will be brought together in a special exhibition featuring ceramicist @alisonproctorceramics , illuminator @sarahdavisartist and basket maker @sarah_le_breton, showcasing how traditional skills can be preserved, reimagined and kept alive through contemporary practice.
📍Exhibition opens Friday 1 May and runs throughout May
Join us for a conversation with the makers on Friday 1 May
See live demonstrations on Saturday 2 May
From sprig moulding and illumination to basketry, this exhibition celebrates the enduring relevance of heritage crafts and the ways they continue to evolve.
Make sure to visit Kelmscott this month.
#HeritageCrafts #WilliamMorris #MakerInResidence #LivingHeritage CraftExhibition
Crafted at Sotheby’s panel discussion – 16 May 2026, 10.30am to 11.30am
The Future of Craft – How do we keep vital skills alive?
From stonemasonry and weaving to glassblowing and basketry, many traditional crafts are under threat. This conversation explores what these skills still offer, why they matter, and how innovation, technology and new models of support might help sustain them, reimagine them and carry them into the future.
Panellists include Daniel Carpenter @heritagecrafts, Lucy Brown @hugoburgefoundation, Louis Elton @nationofartisans and James Haldane @sothebys.
https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/events/crafted-at-sothebys/
This week’s #MondayMaker is @sarah_le_breton
Her work is rooted in a deep passion for willow basketry and traditional craftsmanship. Sarah creates handwoven pieces that honour heritage techniques while exploring contemporary form.
Working from her Devon studio with locally sourced Somerset willow and rush, Sarah makes beautifully crafted baskets, sculptural lighting and woven forms designed for modern life which are all grounded in traditional skills.
Her practice also champions skeinwork, an endangered basketry technique she is helping keep alive through making, teaching and research.
Alongside commissions and workshops, Sarah is the 2025 Maker in Residence at Kelmscott Manor, where she is exploring the connections between rural craft, sustainability and the legacy of William Morris.
From heritage basket forms to innovative new work, Sarah’s practice is a powerful example of craft traditions continuing to evolve.
#basketry #livingHeritage #mondayMaker #heritagecraftuk
Heritage Crafts Weekend at the Cutty Sark – Saturday 16 May 2026, 11am to 4pm
Join @royalmuseumsgreenwich and Heritage Crafts at the Cutty Sark as we shine a spotlight on the heritage craft skills used to build and maintain this historic tea clipper.
Join us for drop-in activities, where you’ll learn about crafts such as rope-making, fender-making and traditional caulking. You’ll also have the opportunity to take a closer look at and handle a range of historical objects and contemporary craft objects. Recommended for ages 5+.
https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/events/cuttysark/
‘As a clog maker, I’m an endangered species’ on BBC News
“I need to be making things to be happy,” says @simon_brock_clogs. “At the end of the day if I’ve got nothing that I can hold in my hands and say I’ve done that today, it feels like a day wasted.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxk34zkq2eo
Heads Up – a hat making symposium for endangered crafts
The @britishhatguild and Heritage Crafts present a two-day symposium to celebrate Britain’s specialist millinery and hat making techniques that now feature on the Red List of Endangered Crafts. Hosted in the heritage-inspired surroundings of The Founders’ Livery Hall, and in partnership with the Worshipful Company of @feltmakers, the event will bring together makers, historians, designers and enthusiasts to honour skills deeply rooted in the nation’s cultural and fashion history.
Across a programme of talks on 16 and 17 May, the symposium will explore the craftsmanship, techniques and stories that define traditional hat-making. By shining a light on these remarkable skills and the people who practice them, the symposium offers an opportunity to appreciate their enduring relevance and to respect the rich legacy they represent within today’s British craft and design industry.
https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/events/heads-up/
