The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has today given a lifeline of almost £7million in training bursaries to the UK’s dying traditional skills. With fewer than 40,000 craftspeople now properly qualified to help maintain the nation’s fragile historic environment, the money will help plug the huge gap between declining numbers of specialists and the growing needs of the nation’s heritage.

Millwrighting and reed-cutting, paper conservation and topiary are just a few of the skills that HLF partners will now be able to offer through traditional style apprenticeships, giving master craftspeople a rare chance to hand on their knowledge.

Sharon Goddard, Heritage Lottery Fund Policy Adviser for Education, said: “There is an urgent need for an initiative like this. Heritage skills are in real danger of dying out, yet an estimated 6,590 additional skilled craftspeople are needed to meet shortages for the UK's historic buildings alone. "Our ‘Training Bursary Scheme’ is designed to lead the fight to keep these essential skills alive by expanding the pool of skilled people and laying the foundations for more heritage training schemes.”

Skills Minister Phil Hope said: "This initiative addressing skills in the specialist areas of conservation and management will help preserve our rich rural heritage. As well as ensuring more people are trained in the short term, the bursaries will help the sector to develop innovative models of delivering training which can be used in the future.

"It is important we protect our unique countryside and heritage through fostering traditional skills. This Government's employer led sector skills councils under our skills strategy will help ensure employer's skills needs are met and skills gaps closed wherever they are."

When heritage sector research* showed serious skills gaps and shortages, HLF set £6million aside to create a training bursaries scheme that would complement its other training initiatives. The scheme is designed to enable heritage organisations to develop innovative training schemes, providing work-based learning opportunities to new entrants or training-up existing staff.

Despite being the best way of learning traditional skills, there are now very few accredited apprenticeships in heritage skills and diminishing numbers of experienced crafts people to train others. Money is an issue for the sector too, as statutory funding is not available for work based learning other than accredited apprenticeships. At the same time, statutory funding is prioritised for under 25 year olds and for basic training, whereas many crafts people enter the profession mid-career and need specialist training.

As a result, the response to HLF’s training bursaries scheme was so great that Trustees of the Fund decided to boost the £6million initially set aside to £7million, funding 10 partnerships in total.

HLF helps the nation’s gardens grow greener
HLF’s grant of £721,000 will fund a partnership of 17 heritage organisations led by English Heritage to run the ‘Historic & Botanic Gardens Scheme’. Offering placements that develop conservation skills for historic parks, gardens, designed landscapes and their plant collections, the scheme will address issues that could otherwise lead to a decline of the sector in 15 to 20 years.

Kim Wilde, celebrity gardener, said: “We are internationally known for our beautiful parks and gardens yet these historic spaces are threatened by an ageing work force and a lack of apprenticeship schemes. HLF’s funding will enable all the major historic garden and botanic institutions in the UK to link up for the first time and address this skills crisis.”

HLF dig deep for archaeology
HLF has awarded £730,000 for the Institute of Field Archaeologists’ training bursary, offering thirty-two archaeology placements across the UK. This will address a real problem for archaeologists as pay and conditions mean that drop out rates are very high so career progression opportunities like this are vital. Priority skills learnt on the work placements will include artefact and ecofact research, geophysical survey and conservation.

Preserving the beauty of the Broads
The Broads Authority has been given £714,500 by HLF to run the ‘Reed, Sedge, Fens and Mills bursary’, providing much needed training in the Broadland area for reed and sedge cutting and millwrighting heritage industries.

This skills boost will play a vital role in preserving the historic character of this area. Broadland’s drainage mills are in a perilous state yet millwrighting skills, such as maintenance and refurbishment of machinery and gearing and the fabrication and repair of caps and sails, are in danger of extinction. There are only two millwrights currently working in the Broadland area which contains 74 remaining drainage mills. Meanwhile, the reed cutting industry is not attracting sufficient numbers of new entrants to manage existing reed, sedge and fen vegetation. The Bursary training scheme will give the necessary boost to cutter numbers and provide the opportunity for trainees to learn additional skills to manage this sensitive local landscape for nature conservation.

Libby Purves, popular author and broadcaster said: “HLF’s investment is wonderful news. The Broadland land-and-waterscape is very special, our inheritance from the ingenuity and skill of past generations. It would have been sad to see the characteristic mills and fens disappearing because there weren't enough people with the skills to save them; and it's good to know that our young people can still do what our ancestors here did."

Big boost for the conservation pool
£1million from HLF will enable Icon (the Institute of Conservation) to offer 60 bursary placements in the conservation of objects and collections - from books and textiles to metalwork and architectural details. Focusing on areas where skills are scarce, demand is high and where little formal training exists, the scheme will create a practical-based entry route into conservation. It will also offer a recognised unit of experience to those who are new to the sector or those who have been working at a lower level.

Loyd Grossman, Chair of the Campaign for Museums, said: “Over the past few years, several heritage organisations have expressed considerable concern about the diminishing pool of conservators. Well done HLF for addressing the urgent need to train more people before this shortage puts the UK’s incredible treasure trove of heritage at risk.”

Building success
A ‘Traditional building skills for England and Wales training bursary’ will be run by English Heritage and the National Trust, thanks to £900,000 from HLF. There is a clear gap in this area, with skills shortages ranging from blacksmithing to dry stone walling and earth building to limeplastering. To help bridge the gap, 80 placements will be offered within the traditional craft and built heritage sector across England and Wales. Plans to teach trainees to train others will help increase the legacy of the bursary.

Hedging the bets – HLF grant raises the odds for a Cornish skill
Up to forty apprentices will be trained on a one to one basis with a skilled Cornish hedger, thanks to a £180,500 training bursary for ‘The Guild of Cornish Hedgers’ Apprentice Training Scheme’. Constructing and maintaining Cornish Hedges is a specialist skill and very localised to the area.

Cornish celebrity chef, Rick Stein OBE, said: “Whenever I’ve been away and I catch my first glimpse of a Cornish hedge, I feel like I’m home. The skill to care for this unique local feature is threatened with extinction so I applaud this scheme to save it.”

Cornish comedian, Jethro, said: “Of all Cornwall’s unique qualities, the hedges are the most visible to any visitor driving through the duchy. Never mind the Tamar, the hedges take you where the border is.”

Masonry £1million
A £1million training bursary from HLF will be used by Historic Scotland for a £2.28m Masonry Conservation in Scotland and Northern Ireland scheme. Offering masonry conservation skills to 154 people in Scotland and N. Ireland, the scheme will help address a huge skill shortage. The investment is good news for the economy too as half of the UK’s £56 billion construction industry involves the repair and refurbishment of existing buildings.

Natural talent – Scotland and Northern Ireland get a boost for their wildlife
BTCV will be running the Natural Talent Training Bursary Scheme, thanks to £677,500 from HLF. 20 apprentices will go on placements with partner organisations in Scotland and Northern Ireland. A wide range of vital but specialist skills will be covered, ranging from studying and recording invertebrates, lower plants and fungi to developing skills in the conservation of specialist habitats.

Alan Titchmarsh, presenter of ‘British Isles: A Natural History’, welcomed the news: “With the few remaining mentors becoming increasingly aged and so few people to take their place, this scheme is desperately needed to hold back the looming crisis of a skills shortage in our natural world.”

Trains, planes and automobiles
The problems of an ageing workforce are to be lessened, thanks to £360,500 from HLF for Hampshire County Council’s Transport Heritage bursary. 16 engineering training work placements in transport heritage disciplines, from vehicle storage and operation to upholstery and construction of wheels will be offered at a range of well- known sites such as the National Railway Museum.

Helping hand for the natural world
HLF’s grant of £704,000 will help 36 trainees learn about natural heritage conservation skills on the Herefordshire Nature Trust’s LEMUR HLF Training Bursary Scheme. Recent graduates and hard to reach learners with a keen interest in natural heritage will be trained in natural heritage conservation skills across the rural, urban and costal environments of Herefordshire, Sheffield and Devon.

* In 2002 HLF published a survey called Sustaining our Living Heritage which highlighted a significant decline of traditional heritage skills. The report noted that many employers were failing to acknowledge the lack of training and education on offer and that poor support for apprenticeships and ongoing professional development meant that some conservation craft skills were now almost extinct.