Craft status
The Heritage Crafts Red List
Drawing on the conservation status system used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust Watchlist, Heritage Crafts uses a system of four categories of risk to assess the viability of heritage crafts. A heritage craft is considered to be viable if there are sufficient craftspeople to transmit the craft skills to the next generation.
Extinct in the UK
Crafts classified as ‘extirpated’ or ‘locally extinct’ are those which are no longer practised in the UK. For the purposes of this research, this category only includes crafts which have become extinct in the past generation.
Critically Endangered
Crafts classified as ‘critically endangered’ are those at serious risk of no longer being practised in the UK. They may include crafts with a shrinking base of craftspeople, crafts with limited training opportunities, crafts with low financial viability, or crafts where there is no mechanism to pass on the skills and knowledge.
Endangered
Crafts classified as ‘endangered’ are those which currently have sufficient craftspeople to transmit the craft skills to the next generation, but for which there are serious concerns about their ongoing viability. This may include crafts with a shrinking market share, an ageing demographic or crafts with a declining number of practitioners.
Currently Viable Crafts
Crafts classified as ‘currently viable’ are those which are in a healthy state and have sufficient craftspeople to transmit the craft skills to the next generation. They may include crafts with a large market share, widely popular crafts, or crafts with a strong local presence. A classification of ‘currently viable’ does not mean that the craft is risk-free or without issues affecting its future sustainability/viability.
Heritage Crafts Inventory
The 2025 edition of the Red List of Endangered Crafts marks a significant evolution in how we understand and safeguard traditional crafts.
This year, we introduce the Heritage Craft Inventory – a new, inclusive framework that ensures all heritage crafts, regardless of their current status, have a place where they are recognised and valued under one umbrella. This expanded approach allows us to shine a light not only on endangered and critically endangered crafts, but also on those that are resurgent, culturally distinctive, or rooted in specific communities and regions. It reflects the dynamic landscape of craft today – one that is constantly evolving and shaped by both challenges and opportunities.
Culturally distinctive crafts
Crafts designated as ‘culturally distinctive’ might have a broad uptake across the UK, but hold a particular significance for a defined community of practice, whether that is geographic, cultural, ethnic or religious. Those that are also on the Red List are known as ‘crafts in need of cultural safeguarding’.
- Canal art and boat painting (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Cornish hedging (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Fair Isle Knitting
- Fair Isle straw back chair making (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Fairground art (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Gansey knitting
- Harris tweed weaving
- Islamic calligraphy
- Northern Isles basket making (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Orkney chair making (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Petrakivka (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Pysanky (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Sgian dubh and dirk making (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Shetland lace knitting
- Shinty caman making
- Sofrut calligraphy
- Sporran making (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Thatching (Irish vernacular) (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Thatching (Scottish vernacular) (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Thatching (Welsh vernacular) (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Vardo and living wagon crafts (craft for cultural safeguarding)
- Welsh double cloth weaving (craft for cultural safeguarding)
Resurgent crafts
Crafts designated as ‘resurgent’ are currently experiencing a positive trajectory as a result of an upswing in new entrants. Just because a craft is considered resurgent does not mean that it cannot also be endangered, but rather that its decline has started to reverse and that its situation is likely to continue improving.
Latest Red List stories
Craft skills remain under threat with 20 new additions to the Red List of Endangered Crafts
Nine more grants to help save endangered crafts
Craft skills under threat with 17 additions to the Red List of Endangered Crafts
Craft inspiration direct to your inbox
Become a Heritage Crafts Fan and receive a free monthly newsletter about craft announcements, events and opportunities.
Subscribe
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/
#matchMAKER opportunity!
Apprentice Upholsterer
Location: Littleborough, Greater Manchester
Deadline: 11 May 2026
Family company New England Sofa Design in Littleborough are recruiting for an Apprentice Upholsterer. The successful candidate will complete a Level 2 Furniture Manufacturer Apprenticeship over the duration of 24 months.
What you’ll do at work:
• Upholstery and reupholstery of new and old furniture
• Using tools safely
• Use various fabrics and learn about their properties
• Health and safety, environmental and sustainability knowledge
• Reading of customer specs and measure, cut and fix material
Find out more including how to apply at https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/matchmaker.
#matchMAKER is the online platform for work-based training and entry-level employment opportunities hosted by @heritagecrafts and supported by @soanebritain.
Staying Alive
This exhibition, co curated by @makesouthwest and Heritage Crafts and taking place at MakeSW, Bovey Tracey, Devon from 2 May to 4 July, 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.
Exhibitors:
• @aaronvalentinestephens, reverse glass sign making
• Alex Mears, boatbuilding
• @amy.goodwin.signwriter, fairground art
• Andrew Cockshaw @crestcornwall, Cornish hedging
• Greg Rowland MBE @wheelwrightgreg, wheelwright
• Jessie Watson Brown @rekindled.hearth, oak bark tanning
• @johnwilliamson.dartmoor, Devon stave basket making
• Nicholas Jarvis @lacebynicholas and Pauline Cochrane, bobbin lacemaking
• Robert Ely @papilionaceouspuresilk, ribbon making
• Sarah Liscoe, sailmaking
• Sue Morgan @crabpotcellars, withy pot making
• Vicky Putler @flax_project, flax processing
Events:
• 8 May, 10.30am to 4.30pm – Signwrite Your Own Ornate Letter, a workshop with Amy Goodwin
• 3 July, 10.30am to 3.30pm – Withy Pot Demo & Meet the Maker with Sue Morgan
• 4 July, 10.30am to 4pm – Make a Willow Crab Pot, a workshop with Sue Morgan
https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/events/stayingalive/
