The battle to save ancient crafts from extinction

By Debbie Luxon via SWNS

Dozens of ancient crafts and skills including plume-making and straw hat-making face extinction in the UK, a new report has found.

Rising energy prices, inflation and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic have seen a big increase in the number of traditional crafts that are now threatened.

Cornish hedging, wooden boat building and fair art are among 146 crafts named in this year's 'Red List of Endangered Crafts.'

The list - compiled by Heritage Crafts - also includes including silk ribbon making and chain making.

After researching 259 trades in the UK, the list breaks them down into 'endangered,' critically endangered,' and 'extinct' categories.

Five new crafts were this year added to the 'critically endangered' list.

These include chain-making, encaustic tile-making, plume-making, silk ribbon making and straw hat-making.

However, just one craft - mouth-blown flat glass - became entirely extinct since the last report.

According to Heritage Crafts, whose research is funded by the Pilgrim Trust, the energy crisis, inflation and changing demographics have stopped traditional trades from being passed on.

However, in a rare glimmer of good news, some previously endangered crafts including shinty stick making and brilliant cutting (hand-cutting glass) have been revived.

New value in homemade items and work to support small businesses in the pandemic have contributed to saving crafts like these.

Heritage Crafts was able to distribute 57 grants of up to £2,000 ($2,525 USD) each as part of its Endangered Crafts Fund to help preserve ancient crafts.

Mary Lewis, who led the research on behalf of Heritage Crafts, said: “The effect of the energy crisis, inflation, COVID-19 and Brexit have been tough on everyone, not least the craftspeople who possess our most fundamental craft skills.

"We know that heritage craft skills operate like an ecosystem; if we lose one part it can have devastating consequences on other parts of the system.

"If we allow endangered crafts to disappear then we seriously diminish the opportunities for future generations to create their own sustainable and fulfilling livelihoods and deal with the challenges of the future.”

The battle to save some crafts is often taken on by women in what were traditionally male-led trades.

Those fighting for the survival of Cornish hedging include Helen Bowkett, 51, the only female hedger in the Guild of Cornish Hedgers.

She has taken the baton to train a new generation in the unique and eco-friendly skill.

The hedging grainer from Penwith, Cornwall, said: "The Guild was formed in 2002 because the skill was being lost.

"Farmers are under too much pressure now to pass it on from farmer to son.

"Children aren't staying in farming so the generational skill is being lost.

"I hedged with my dad when I was young.

"My favorite memories are of mending hedging with him at age seven, passing him the wrong stones."

The landscape gardener learned to create the five-by-five-foot hedging from banks that are up to 5,000 years old in the region.

She trained as a hedger 10 years ago, spending a year getting her qualification from the Guild.

The hedger collects stones from a cleared field and uses the excess soil to build a ridge that is compacted in by tiered stones on either side.

The hedge is then topped with an attractive domed turf.

For this reason, the hedges host a seed bank from plants found when the structure was originally built, in some cases thousands of years ago.

The hedges also play a role in making a home for wildlife, whilst staying steady for centuries and contributing to the unique scenery of the Cornish landscape.

However, there are now just 13 working craftsmen left practicing this craft in the Guild.

For this reason, Helen has given up building to teach budding hedgers full-time to try and save the dying skill.

She said: "There were only 13 of us at the AGM in February. That's the worry.

"I'm the only woman to complete the 10-day course we run. We need to teach in a way that retains women."

Helen is now designing and teaching courses to attract women with shorter taster sessions.

Her concern is without more hedgers, the quality and upkeep of the Cornish landscape will decline.

The married mom of three said: "Cornish hedges are the only man-made structure still in use for its original purpose today.

"It's a way of building a boundary using the stone from the original field. It becomes an incredible habitat for biodiversity.

"They become part of a network of hedges that are like motorways for small wildlife from insects, lizards, lichens, mosses, gorse, butterflies and bees."

Amy Stringfellow, 33, has worked as a boat builder since she was 21.

Her contribution to the trade of traditional wooden boat building and restoration is also to recruit more women, which she says is the key to the continuation of the craft.

Amy, from Falmouth, UK, said: "For a long time I was the only female boat builder around. I remember so clearly feeling quite isolated.

"I now work as a mentor to set up diversity strategies for boatyards to encourage better work environments for everyone.

"Another issue is a lack of people studying STEM subjects across the board- it's a real economic problem.

"Boatbuilding has a particular economic value for the Cornish coastline.

"Britain is a tiny island dictated by water and there are hundreds of off-shooting transferable skills people can move into from boatbuilding."

Collaborating with Heritage Crafts on a survey of 150 boatbuilders and apprentices, Amy found wooden boat building 'by eye' to be the most dwindling skill.

Though Amy specializes in wooden boats and restoration, she has to work on all types of boats and repairs including fiberglass.

She explains: "Nowadays you have to be multifaceted.

"It's very rare that you have someone who is exclusively a traditional shipwright, only a handful of people do it and have the skill to judge a boat 'by eye.'

"When a master craftsman has been building a boat for a long time the methodology is built in the brain.

"You can set it up without needing dimensions. You can look down the center of the boat and tell if it's altered because of the weather.

"It's multi-dimensional. Everything can affect wood, it's a live substance."

Back in the 19th century boats were often built on the beach they would be used on, created for the specific needs of the tide and slipway on that one beach.

Amy said: "The key importance of the community and bringing that skill back has been lost along the way and become a dying trade. It's tragic really."

Though the design which hinged on the boat's importance to the local communities has been lost, since the pandemic Amy says more people have been wanting to attend her courses at the Boat Building Academy in Lyme Regis, UK.

Joby Carter, on the other hand, made the heartbreaking decision to close down his vintage traveling steam fair last year.

The Carter's Steam Fair had toured across the country for 45 years becoming well known for its iconic rides and their historically accurate restorations.

However for Joby, 47, a married dad of three, he has the future of fairground art in mind.

For Joby, restoration was a family affair after traveling with the fair with his parents and siblings as a child.

Everyone pitched in with painting and repairing the vintage chair swings, gallopers and dodgems.

Having grown up painting the rides for his whole life, he now wants to pass that skill on.

Joby, from Maidenhead, Berks, said: "When I was a kid I can't remember not traveling.

"We lived in wagons- it was a very colorful life. I worked on the stalls from age seven, on the hook-a-duck or the ball and bucket.

"I fell in love with sign writing and fairground art at age eight.

"When the fair came to town in the 19th century it was exciting, most people saw electricity in use for the first time.

"On gallopers (the traditional word for a carousel) it was the fastest you would have ever traveled in your life.

"The gallopers would feature dramatic jungle scenes painted with other things you would never have seen like a lion or tiger.

"The paints were loud, it would attract you to the ride, not to the next-door competitor.

"Nowadays everything is printed on vinyl and fiberglass. When people stick prints onto a 100-year-old ride, it misses the point.

"We use the traditional paints, wood carving, mirror cutting and gold leaf."

The pandemic killed the fair but gave way to Joby's online classes for fairground art and traditional signage paintings.

He said the popularity of his sign painting has exploded, with participants from Australia and Canada signing up to do his courses, however, his fairground art courses are not as popular.

He currently hosts just one one-day course a year and will be lucky to get 15 people signed up.

He said: "There's not the same interest- it's really esoteric. Sign writing is used for trains, buses, buildings, everywhere. Fairground art is just for the fairground.

"The skill needs recognition. My family are all artists, my sister is a scenic painter, my mum would paint the panels.

"Someone said to me once, 'do you ever fancy doing real art?' We paint these rides and put them on display for free. Our canvas was the funfair."

Critically endangered crafts are those at serious risk of no longer being practiced.

They are skills that have a shrinking base of craftspeople, limited training opportunities or low financial viability.

The newly critically endangered crafts listed this year are:

Arrowsmithing
Bow making (musical)
Chain making
Coppersmithing
Encaustic tile making
Hat block making
Plume making
Silk ribbon making
Straw hat making
Sussex trug making
Whip making

Endangered crafts are those that have serious concerns for their future viability, including a shrinking market share, an aging demographic, or declining numbers of practitioners.

The newly endangered crafts listed this year are:

Bicycle frame making
Boat building (traditional wooden boats)
Canal art and barge painting
Composition picture frame making
Cornish hedging
Fairground art
Gauged brickwork
Graining and marbling
Hand engraving
Hand hewing
Lacquerwork
Marionette making
Mechanical organ making
Pigment making
Sgain dubh making
Silk weaving
Spar making
Stained glass window-making (historic)
Vardo art and living waggon crafts

The HCA Heritage Crafts Red List of Endangered Crafts 2023 edition is available to view here.