Highlighting Endangered Heritage Crafts in the UK

The newly published ‘Red List of Endangered Crafts 2023’

Historic stained glass restoration is now considered endangered in the UK. FXQuadro/Shutterstock

What do arrowsmithing, coppersmithing, and straw hat-making have in common? They are three of the eleven heritage crafts that have been newly classified as “critically endangered” in the UK, meaning that those craft skills could disappear in a generation.

Sights such as Cornish coppersmith Francis Cargeeg working in his workshop in 1951 are now rare in the UK, as coppersmithing is critically endangered. Pipsqueak2000/CC BY-SA 3.0

On May 11, a total of 146 “endangered” and “critically endangered” heritage crafts were announced, when an updated version of the 2021 “Red List of Endangered Crafts” was published. The updated list is the fourth edition published by the Heritage Crafts Association (HCA), commonly known as Heritage Crafts.

Heritage Crafts is an independent UK charity set up by craftspeople and supporters of crafts as a direct response to a perceived lack of recognition and support for traditional craftsmanship in the UK.

The charity’s researchers define a heritage craft as “a practice which employs manual dexterity and skill and an understanding of traditional materials, design, and techniques, and which has been practiced for two or more successive generations.” All crafts on the “Red List” are practiced in the UK today, and include crafts that originated elsewhere.

Preserving Heritage Crafts

An aging demographic, limited training opportunities, and low financial viability are just some of myriad reasons a craft becomes endangered. Another reason is that heritage craft businesses sometimes rely on each other. “When one business closes, or one craft becomes extinct, it can have a knock-on effect on other allied crafts,” Heritage Crafts’ endangered crafts manager Mary Lewis wrote on the Heritage Crafts website. For instance, the last known producer of mouth-blown flat glass, English Antique Glass, stopped producing it in 2022, making that craft extinct. The absence of mouth-blown flat glass makers means that the making and restoration of historic stained glass is now at risk and newly classified as an “endangered” heritage craft.

Historic stained glass restoration is now considered endangered in the UK. FXQuadro/Shutterstock

Conversely, this interconnectedness has been helpful. Heritage craftspeople have been able to use their skills to stop similar crafts from being lost. For instance, metalworkers have helped preserve the craft of tinsmithing. After the 2021 red list classified tinsmithing as “critically endangered,” the Museum of Making, in Derby, held two week-long courses in tinsmithing, funded by Heritage Crafts and the Worshipful Company of Tin Plate Workers Alias Wire Workers. Some of the metalworkers who attended those courses now use tinsmithing in their businesses.

Inevitably, some heritage crafts cease to exist in modern society. But it is important to “record the oral histories that surround them, and make sure they’re not forgotten in the future,” Lewis told NTD, The Epoch Times sister media.

The “Red List of Endangered Crafts” highlights the rich tapestry of at-risk heritage crafts practiced in the UK in the hope that they will exist for generations to come.

The updated list was funded by The Pilgrim Trust with sponsorship from The Royal Mint. To find out more about the Heritage Crafts Association and the “Red List of Endangered Crafts,” visit RedList.HeritageCrafts.org.uk