← All crafts The forthcoming surface

The pipeline.

The crafts and traditions the archive intends to document next, anchored against the Heritage Crafts Red List. Some are critically endangered - fewer than five working practitioners. Some are partly documented and need their next session funded to land. Some are annual ceremonies whose record requires a year-on-year visit. All are sponsorable.

Makers

10 in the pipeline

  • In research Critically Endangered fewer than 5 CP-0001

    Swill basket weaving

    The Lake District basket woven from boiled and split oak, used for centuries to carry potatoes, peat, and fish. The craft survives in the hands of fewer than five working swill makers, all in Cumbria. The archive intends a full multi-visit documentation of one of the remaining makers - the cleaving, the boiling, the weaving over a wooden bool, and the finishing.

    Where Cumbria

  • Untouched Critically Endangered 1 working maker CP-0002

    Sieve and riddle making

    The hand-bound horse-hair sieve and the hardwood riddle - tools the English mill, the bakery, and the chemist depended on for two centuries. Now down to a single working maker. The archive will document the bending of the rim, the binding of the mesh, the sequence by which a tool that has not changed in three hundred years comes into being.

    Where Devon

  • In research Critically Endangered fewer than 10 CP-0003

    Currach building

    The English currach - the hide-and-frame coastal boat that pre-dates the Roman conquest - is held by a tiny group of builders working with traditional cowhide skins on hand-bent ash frames. The archive intends to document a complete build from frame-making through to launch, alongside the boat-builder who has spent thirty years on the craft.

    Where West Country

  • Partial Endangered ~30 working letter-cutters CP-0004

    Letter-cutting in stone →

    The English memorial letter, cut into stone with a hammer and chisel, in the lineage of Eric Gill and David Kindersley. The archive has documented the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge as the first entry. Two further sessions planned: a working letter-cutter outside the Kindersley line, and a younger apprentice still finding their hand.

    Shipped
    Planned 2 more sessions

    Where Cambridge, Edinburgh, London

  • Partial Endangered ~15 working millwrights CP-0005

    Millwrighting →

    The repair, restoration, and (rarely) the building of windmills and watermills. The archive has documented Paul Kemp at Toft Monks (working) and Richard Seago at South Walsham (retired, private preserver - the founding subject of the Gatherers category). Two further sessions planned: a watermill specialist on the West Country chalk streams, and a millwrighting apprentice if one can be found.

    Shipped
    Planned 2 more sessions

    Where Norfolk, Suffolk, West Country

  • Partial Endangered a small number CP-0006

    Thames clinker boat building →

    The clinker-built Thames pleasure boats and skiffs that have carried passengers up and down the river since the Victorian period. The archive has documented Dennett Boat Builders at Laleham. One further session planned: a separate yard whose work covers a different part of the river and a different generation of boat.

    Shipped
    Planned 1 more session

    Where Thames Valley

  • Scheduled Endangered ~50 active coppice workers CP-0007

    Coppice working

    The traditional management of broadleaf woodland on a rotating cut, producing hazel rods, chestnut paling, hurdles, charcoal, and the kind of biodiverse woodland English landscape depended on for a thousand years. The first session is scheduled for late spring with a working coppice manager in the Cotswolds.

    Planned 1 more session

    Where Cotswolds, South Downs, Sussex Weald

  • Partial Endangered Fewer than 10 working makers in the UK CP-0016

    Hazel basket making

    The split-hazel Whisket of the Welsh Marches - a round-bottomed basket with a hazel-bowed handle, woven from splints cleaved out of nine-year hazel rods. The form has been made in Radnorshire and Herefordshire since the form was first made; it survives in the hands of a small number of practitioners, of whom Lewis Goldwater at Turnham Green Wood is one of the most active teaching makers. The archive has documented Lewis as the first entry. Further sessions planned: a return visit to Lewis through a working year, and at least one further practitioner in the same tradition.

    Shipped
    Planned 2 more sessions

    Where Herefordshire, Radnorshire (Powys)

  • Partial Currently Viable CP-0017

    Silversmithing

    Silversmithing as a whole is still taught and practised across Britain, but the Arts and Crafts tradition of raising hollowware by hand - and the ecclesiastical and domestic plate made to commission, one piece at a time - survives in very few workshops. The rarest case is Hart Gold & Silversmiths in the Old Silk Mill at Chipping Campden, the last continuously working workshop of C. R. Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft, where four generations of Harts have raised silver by hand in the same room since 1902. The archive has documented David Hart, third generation, eighty-seven and seventy years at the bench, and his son William, the fourth. Further sessions would extend the record to other hand-raising and Guild-tradition silversmiths.

    Shipped
    Planned 1 more session

    Where Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire

  • Partial Critically Endangered a handful of working engine turners CP-0018

    Engine turning & watch case-making

    Engine turning - guilloche - is the hand decoration of metal on a rose engine or a straight-line engine, the rocking and reciprocating machines that draw the wave, basketweave and barleycorn patterns seen on the backs of fine watches. Heritage Crafts lists it as critically endangered: the machines are scarce, and the people who can drive them, and keep them running, are scarcer still. Bound up with it is the making of watch cases by hand, almost entirely lost to factory production. The archive opened its horology pillar with Seth Kennedy near Much Hadham - an engineer turned self-taught watchmaker, case maker and engine turner, and a QEST scholar who engine-turned the gold mount of King Charles III's Royal Family Order. Further sessions would extend the record to clock and watch makers, dial makers, and the last working engine turners.

    Shipped
    Planned 2 more sessions

    Where Much Hadham, Hertfordshire

Keepers

2 in the pipeline

  • In research Not Red-Listed CP-0012

    Cathedral vergers and minor canons

    The men and women who hold the keys to the English cathedral - the verger who walks the same flagstones every dawn, the minor canon who has sung Evensong daily for thirty years. Lifelong tenure of a single building. The archive intends to document at least three vergers across the cathedral cities (Canterbury, York, Durham, Wells) over Year Two.

    Planned 3 more sessions

    Where Canterbury, York, Durham, Wells

  • Partial Not Red-Listed CP-0013

    Long-tenure parish churchwardens →

    Churchwardens with twenty or more years of tenure at a single parish - holders of building, register, churchyard, and continuity. The archive has documented one (Mary Read at Holy Trinity, Long Melford). Three further sessions planned across East Anglia and the West Country, where the long-tenure pattern is strongest.

    Shipped
    • Mary Read, Custodian of St Michael’s (KP-0005)
    Planned 3 more sessions

    Where East Anglia, West Country

Carriers

4 in the pipeline

  • Ongoing Not Red-Listed CP-0008

    Spring Equinox at Tower Hill →

    The Druid Order’s annual rite at Tower Hill in the City of London, performed at midday on every spring equinox since 1956. The 2026 ceremony has been documented (see CR-0001). This entry remains in the pipeline so future-year sessions can be sponsored - the ceremony continues annually and each year is its own working record.

    Shipped

    Where Tower Hill, City of London

  • Ongoing Not Red-Listed CP-0009

    May Morning at Magdalen →

    The Magdalen College choir singing the Hymnus Eucharisticus from the top of the Great Tower at 6am on the first of May. The 2026 ceremony is the archive’s first attempt (see CR-0009). Subsequent years remain open for sponsorship - a long-term annual record requires year-on-year visits.

    Shipped
    • May Morning at Magdalen (CR-0009)

    Where Magdalen College, Oxford

  • In research Not Red-Listed CP-0010

    Lewes Bonfire Night

    The Lewes Bonfire Society procession on 5 November - the largest, oldest, and most editorially difficult-to-document of the English fire festivals. Six societies, thousands of marchers, banners and burning crosses, and a ceremonial bar that takes years to earn access through. The archive intends to document the captain of one of the societies and one full Bonfire Night season.

    Where Lewes, South Downs

  • Untouched Not Red-Listed CP-0011

    Abbots Bromley Horn Dance

    The Horn Dance at Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire - performed annually on the Monday after the first Sunday after the 4th of September, with reindeer antlers carried since the eleventh century. The Horn Dancers are the oldest surviving English folk-tradition lineage. The archive intends to document a full day of the dance, the carriers, and the antlers’ church-keeping.

    Where Abbots Bromley, Heart of England

Stewards

2 in the pipeline

  • In research Not Red-Listed ~80 in England CP-0014

    Chalk stream river keepers

    The river keepers of the southern chalk streams - the Test, the Itchen, the Wylye, the Kennet - whose daily work maintains a freshwater landscape that exists almost nowhere else on earth. England holds 85 percent of the world’s chalk streams. The archive intends to document at least two keepers and one full season of the work.

    Planned 2 more sessions

    Where Hampshire, Wiltshire, Kent

  • In research Not Red-Listed CP-0015

    Hefted flock shepherds

    The Yorkshire and Lake District shepherds whose Herdwick and Swaledale flocks are hefted to a specific stretch of fell - a knowledge of grazing range carried in the sheep themselves, passed mother-to-lamb through generations. The hefted flock cannot be replaced by buying new sheep. The archive intends to document one shepherd through a full year.

    Where Yorkshire Dales, Lake District