Documenting and supporting the UK’s most vulnerable traditional craft skills.

Category: Metal

Bell founding is the casting of bells for churches, clocks and public buildings, including handbells, ship's bells and chime bells. The craft reached Britain with the spread of monastic Christianity and once supported a foundry in nearly every town. Today it survives almost entirely at a single works in Loughborough, using a two-part mould process that has changed little since the twelfth century.

Context: The closure of London's Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 2017, after nearly 250 years of continuous operation, left one major UK bell foundry standing.

Category: Ceramic

Encaustic tiles are made by pressing a pattern into clay and filling it with a contrasting slip before firing, the technique behind the geometric floor tiles of medieval churches and Victorian Gothic Revival buildings. First used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the craft fell dormant after the dissolution of the monasteries and was revived by Herbert Minton in the 1840s. Only a handful of makers, led by Craven Dunnill Jackfield in Shropshire, still produce them by hand.

CraftGate note: Direct overlap with CraftGate's planned Encaustic Tile Making track.

Category: Metal, Wood

Millwrighting combines heavy carpentry, ironwork and mechanical engineering to build and maintain the wind and water mills that once powered Britain's agriculture and industry. It dates to the Middle Ages and evolved through the Industrial Revolution as iron and steam supplemented timber and water power. Today it survives through a small number of professional millwrights and a wider network of skilled volunteers keeping surviving mills running.

CraftGate note: Direct overlap with CraftGate's planned Millwrighting track.

Category: Other

Irish vernacular thatching uses straw, water reed, marram grass or heather, fixed by one of four regional techniques (scollop, stapple, rope or thrust thatch) developed to suit local materials and climate across Ireland and Northern Ireland. Around 35 thatchers are thought to practise across the island, roughly nine of them in Northern Ireland.

CraftGate note: Adjacent to CraftGate's Regional Thatching Specialisms track.

Category: Other

This entry covers thatching with marram grass, oat straw, heather, bracken and rush on buildings across Scotland's Highlands and Islands, a regional tradition distinct from thatching elsewhere in the UK.

CraftGate note: Maps to CraftGate's planned Regional Thatching Specialisms track (Highlands and Islands strand).

Category: Other

Welsh vernacular thatching uses locally sourced straw, heather, rushes and other plant material, with a distinctive rounded profile, roll gables strapped down with handmade rope, and a two-layer construction of base coat and weathering coat found nowhere else in the UK. A new entry to the 2025 Red List, it is now practised by only one or two people, following a sharp mid-twentieth-century decline as slate and corrugated iron replaced thatch across rural Wales.

Context: Designated a craft for cultural safeguarding in the 2025 edition: endangered in its Welsh regional form, even though thatching in general is currently viable.

CraftGate note: Maps to CraftGate's planned Regional Thatching Specialisms track (Welsh Vernacular strand).

Category: Wood

Wainwrighting is the building of wooden wagons and carts, traditionally the trade a wheelwright progressed into before becoming a coachbuilder. New wagons are almost never built from scratch today; the work that remains is largely the restoration of existing vehicles.

CraftGate note: Adjacent to CraftGate's Heritage Joinery progressions (wheelwrighting, hewing).

Category: Ceramic

Traditional brick making moulds and fires bricks by hand, often in the regional clay and style of the building being repaired. Brick making arrived with the Romans, was reintroduced by Flemish craftsmen in the thirteenth century, and became a regulated trade under the guilds from the 1380s; the oldest of these, the Worshipful Company of Tylers and Bricklayers, survives today.

CraftGate note: Adjacent to CraftGate's live Heritage Brickwork track and planned Gauged Brickwork strand.

Category: Stone

Cornish hedging builds the stone-faced earth banks that define the Cornish landscape, a practice roughly 4,000 years old. Laid end to end, Cornwall's hedges would stretch around 30,000 miles, and many preserve field boundaries thousands of years old. The Guild of Cornish Hedgers, formed in 2002, has around 13 full-time and 7 part-time members.

CraftGate note: Adjacent to CraftGate's Stonemasonry progressions, alongside flintwork.

Category: Stone

Flintwork is the laying of flint, often knapped and faced, to build or repair the walls of churches and vernacular buildings across the flint-producing regions of England.

CraftGate note: Adjacent to CraftGate's Stonemasonry progressions.

Category: Ceramic

Gauged brickwork is the highest branch of the bricklaying trade. Soft, low-fired bricks known as rubbers are cut and rubbed to precise dimensions after firing, then set in very fine lime putty joints to form arches, pilasters, cornices and other decorative features. The technique developed in the late seventeenth century under Dutch influence and reached its peak in Georgian building and later revivals.

CraftGate note: CraftGate's planned Gauged Brickwork track, promoted from a strand within Heritage Brickwork to a standalone strand.

Category: Other

Pargeting is ornamental relief plasterwork applied to external walls, introduced to England in the sixteenth century by Italian plasterers brought over by Henry VIII; scagliola is a related technique using pigmented plaster to imitate marble. Pargeting was fashionable from the Restoration until the Industrial Revolution, revived during the Arts and Crafts movement, and has drawn renewed interest in recent decades.

CraftGate note: Direct overlap with CraftGate's Lime Plastering progressions (pargeting, stucco and scagliola).

Category: Stone

Slate working covers two related trades: riving and dressing slate, usually at the quarry, for roofing, and working slate into other objects. Vernacular slate roofing, with irregular quarry-dressed slates hung on pegs rather than nailed to regular battens, survives in many regional forms across the UK, shaped by whatever slate was locally available.

CraftGate note: Direct overlap with CraftGate's live Heritage Roofing track and its planned slate dressing progression.

Category: Glass

This entry covers the making and restoration of stained glass windows by historic methods: cartooning a full-size design, cutting and painting the glass, firing the paint, leading the panel together, then cementing and installing it. The techniques have barely changed since the medieval period. The craft was added to the Red List in 2023, partly because mouth-blown sheet glass production ended in the UK the previous year, removing a key material source.

Context: The British Society of Master Glass Painters has described professional numbers as dangerously low relative to the amount of historic glass needing conservation.

CraftGate note: Direct overlap with CraftGate's live Stained Glass Conservation track.

Category: Textile

Bowed-felt hat making produces hard-wearing felt hats from raw wool or fur using a pre-industrial process specific to the hatting trade, in which the fibres are separated and laid with a vibrating bow before felting. Introduced by continental hatters in the sixteenth century, it is the only historic method of making felt in Britain; the process died out here for around 150 years and has been reconstructed from historical records by a single maker in Scotland.

Category: Textile

Hand pleating sets pleats into fabric using folded card moulds and steam. Most pleating is now done by machine, but a small specialist and couture market for hand-pleated fabric remains, served by only a handful of practitioners in the UK.

Category: Textile

Trade flower making shapes fabric petals and leaves with Victorian and Edwardian flower irons and veining tools, producing flowers for millinery, fashion, theatre and floristry. The trade was at its height in the nineteenth century, often worked from home on piece rates, and has declined steadily since the First World War. One full-time maker remains, alongside a few part-time makers and milliners with related skills.

Category: Textile

Frame knitting produces knitted textiles on a hand-operated framework knitting machine, a device invented by William Lee of Calverton, Nottinghamshire, in 1589. It became one of the defining industries of the East Midlands, concentrated around Nottingham and Leicester. The last commercial frame knitter retired in 2020; the skill now survives through a few part-time operators and trainees at the Framework Knitters' Museum in Ruddington and at G.H. Hurt & Son.

Category: Other

Hat plaiting is the preparation and plaiting of straw, principally wheat, into strong, even lengths of plait for making into hats. From the late seventeenth century it employed tens of thousands of people, above all in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, and plait was exported worldwide. Each plait has a patterned head, a body and a foot carrying the joins, and is made to precise trade standards that distinguish it from decorative straw work.

CraftGate note: Feeds directly into straw hat making, also on the Red List.

Category: Textile

Horsehair weaving produces haircloth, a lustrous and durable upholstery fabric woven from horse tail hair on a cotton or silk warp. Used by Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Rennie Mackintosh, it remains in demand for high-quality furniture. A single manufacturer, John Boyd Fabrics at Castle Cary in Somerset, still weaves it on looms and by methods dating from 1870.

Category: Textile

Beetling gives linen its characteristic flat surface and sheen by pounding starched cloth, wound on a wooden beam, with heavy wooden hammers over a cycle of about four weeks. Mechanised in Ireland in the 1720s and 1730s, it now survives at a single site, the Upperlands Beetling Mill in County Londonderry, where one skilled beetler remains. The process uses natural starch and very little water or energy.

Context: William Clark & Sons beetled at Upperlands from 1736 until 2024; the mill lease has since passed to a new operator who intends to keep it running.

Category: Textile

Linen damask weaving produces patterned pure-linen cloth on Jacquard looms, with designs encoded on punched cards. The trade grew from the late seventeenth century, and in 1737 George II turned to Irish weavers to supply royal table linen. It held its place until the upheavals of the First World War. Today three weavers remain, two of them working in museum settings, in Northern Ireland and Montrose.

Category: Metal, Textile

Metal thread making produces the gold, silver and copper threads used in embroidery, from round or flattened wire that may be wrapped around a core and plaited or combined by machine. The threads are used for historic costume, theatre, ceremonial insignia and goldwork, including training at the Royal School of Needlework. Two firms, in Warwickshire and West Sussex, make up the trade.

Category: Textile

Frame quilting stitches a layer of wadding between two fabrics by hand, worked on a large frame in elaborate and often regional patterns, producing hard-wearing bed covers and clothing. Documented in Britain from around 1300, it was a widespread professional trade in Georgian Britain. The surviving vernacular practice is concentrated in north-east England and south Wales, held by elderly makers trained in the early twentieth century; one professional, now retired, remains.

Category: Textile

Silk ribbon weaving produces narrow woven silk ribbons on specialist looms. Coventry was the centre of the English trade from the early 1700s to the 1860s, when around half its population lived by it. Four companies now remain, in Devon, West Yorkshire and Bedworth, serving a market that is largely ceremonial and historical, including medal ribbons, period costume and film.

Category: Other

Straw hat making constructs hats and boaters by stitching straw plait or braid, shaping it on a hat block and finishing it. Before sewing machines arrived in the 1870s, plait was hand-stitched by overlapping or edge-to-edge methods; Luton became the centre of the machine-stitched trade. A small number of makers remain, and only one or two people in Luton can still machine-stitch straw.

CraftGate note: Depends on hat plaiting and hat block making, both critically endangered.

Category: Textile

Bast fibre processing turns flax, hemp and nettle stems into spinnable fibre through harvesting, drying, retting, then breaking, scutching and hackling. Flax has been grown in Britain since the Bronze Age, and hemp was central to rope and sail making. A small number of people now grow, ret and process fibre, mostly by hand, with machine scutching available only on restored or experimental equipment. A new entry in 2025, it is noted as a resurgent craft.

Category: Textile

Traditional kilt making forms a kilt by hand from a continuous, uncut length of wool tartan, pleated and stitched to the wearer's measurements. The modern kilt descends from the belted plaid of the late sixteenth century and the stitched little kilt first recorded around 1792. A pool of skilled hand kiltmakers remains in Scotland, but it is shrinking.

Category: Textile

Bobbin lace is an openwork fabric made by twisting and crossing many threads wound on bobbins. Introduced to England in the late sixteenth century from Flanders and Italy, and strengthened by Huguenot refugees, it became a major cottage industry in Devon, where Honiton lace was made, and across the south Midlands. Fewer than ten people now make a living from it, though more earn a small income teaching.

Category: Textile

Nalbinding, or needle-binding, builds a dense, elastic fabric from short lengths of yarn looped with a single flat needle. It predates knitting by millennia; in Britain the evidence is Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian, and the only surviving nalbound object is the tenth-century sock found at Coppergate, York. Three people practise professionally, with more working part-time.

Category: Textile

Passementerie is the making of elaborate trimmings: tassels, braids, cords, fringing and edgings for furnishings and dress. It flourished with the luxury interiors of the English court and country houses from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries onwards. A handful of companies continue the craft, alongside upholsterers and embroiderers who make trimmings as part of their wider practice.

Category: Textile

Shetland lace is an exceptionally fine knitted fabric made from soft Shetland wool spun into very fine yarn, worked in garter stitch and intricate patterns, traditionally on wires with a knitting belt. It was the mainstay of the Shetland knitwear industry in the nineteenth century, made fashionable by Queen Victoria, and the knitters of Unst were renowned for it. Many skilled knitters still work within Shetland, but none professionally.

Category: Textile

Traditional silk weaving produces silk fabric in mill settings, sometimes mixed with fine cotton, wool or linen weft. Silk has never been farmed in Britain, but a weaving industry grew from the late Middle Ages, centred first in Spitalfields. Three mills remain, two in Sudbury, Suffolk and one at Whitchurch in Hampshire, employing around twenty-five weavers.

Category: Other

Straw working makes decorative and functional objects from straw, drawing on techniques that were once separate trades, including hat plaiting, corn dollies and straw marquetry. The modern craft took shape from the 1950s and grew through books, broadcasting and adult education in the 1960s and 1970s. Between ten and twenty people practise it professionally.

Category: Textile

Welsh double cloth, best known in the tapestry blanket or carthen, is a reversible woven fabric made in Welsh mills from British wool in traditional Welsh designs. Weaving grew out of Wales's sheep economy in the Middle Ages and expanded in the woollen mills of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Four or five mills still have the capacity to weave it. It was a new entry to the Red List in 2025.

Category: Basketry, Wood

Basketwork furniture is made from willow using basket-making techniques over a frame of boiled, pollarded tree sticks. It has been produced on the Somerset Levels for centuries, and the trade grew so strongly in the early twentieth century that Athelney station was extended around 1906 to handle it. A handful of makers remain, with three trainees.

Category: Wood

A besom is a bundle of twigs, usually birch, bound around a handle. The craft was strongest where birch coppice was plentiful, notably around Tadley on the Hampshire and Berkshire border; elsewhere heather or marram grass was used. Only a few people now make besoms commercially, mainly in south-east England and Cumbria, though many coppice workers make a few.

Category: Other

Coiled straw baskets, known in England as lipwork, are made from wheat or oat straw coiled and stitched with split bramble, string or other cordage. Once made across the UK for domestic and farm use, and closely associated with Scotland and Wales, they now survive almost only in Orkney and Shetland. No one makes them professionally; a few people work part-time.

Category: Basketry, Wood

The Devon stave basket is assembled from wooden splints fixed to a wooden base and held with nails and ash bands, the two end staves forming handles. Made on a jig to five standard sizes, the largest known as maunds, it was used in the fields to carry feed and gather potatoes and apples. Elm bases gave way to other woods after Dutch elm disease. No one makes them professionally.

Category: Wood, Other

The Fair Isle chair has a wooden base and a straw back, related to the Orkney chair but with a different frame and a distinctive straw technique built up by knotting rather than stitching. Chair making was strong on Fair Isle through the nineteenth century, possibly as important to the island's men as knitting was to its women. One part-time maker, based in Shetland, now practises, with two trainees.

Category: Basketry

Northern Isles basketry uses local plants, chiefly straw and common rush, with marram and dock, to make baskets such as the kishie of Shetland and the caisie of Orkney, twined back baskets used above all for carrying peat. The tradition is unique in the British Isles, shaped by islands with few durable materials and almost no timber. Only a few people make them, part-time.

Category: Wood

Traditional rake making produces hay rakes with wooden teeth, heads and handles. Rakes were once essential on every farm for gathering hay and dressing ricks and thatch, and demand was considerable until the communal hay harvest gave way to machinery around 1930. A few people make them part-time, and around twenty a year learn to make rakes for their own use.

Category: Basketry

Rattan furniture making builds frames and weaves furniture and homewares from rattan. It became popular in Victorian Britain, and the Leicester firm Dryad, founded in 1907, became well known for it. Much manufacturing moved to Asia from the 1970s. One UK company, Soane Britain in Leicester, now holds the craft, employing eighteen craftspeople and training ten apprentices.

Category: Basketry

The Sussex trug is a garden basket made from cleft or sawn willow boards on a frame of coppiced sweet chestnut. Trugs appear in records from the thirteenth century; the modern form was developed and popularised in the nineteenth century. The craft is rooted in a local economy, using East Sussex chestnut and willow offcuts from cricket bat making. Two people make trugs full-time.

Category: Basketry

Swills are baskets woven from thin strips of cleft and boiled oak, traditional to the southern Lake District. Probably a cottage industry in origin, swill making became a trade in its own right after the Industrial Revolution, supplying mines, mills, ironworks, coal steamers and farms, before declining rapidly with mechanisation and plastics after the war. Two people make them full-time.

Category: Basketry

Bee skeps are baskets for housing and collecting bees, made either of wicker or, more commonly since the Anglo-Saxon period, of coiled straw lipwork. The word comes from the Anglo-Saxon for basket; in north-east Scotland skeps are called ruskies. The craft may reach back to prehistory. No one makes skeps professionally, though a few people work part-time.

Category: Other

Corn dollies, also called harvest tokens or harvest trophies, are symbolic figures made from straw as part of harvest customs. The tradition is documented from the late sixteenth century and probably older, and it developed many regional forms through the following centuries. In Cornwall the ceremony of Crying the Neck is still held at the end of harvest. No one practises it professionally.

Category: Basketry

Hazel frame baskets, known in some regions as whiskets, are made from split hazel woven around ribs and hoops. Associated especially with Wales and the borders, they were made on upland farms and in coastal communities for their own use, in many local styles with no fixed form. A few people make them professionally, with more part-time makers and recent trainees. Heritage Crafts classes it as resurgent, with new entrants improving its outlook.

Category: Wood

Hurdle making produces wattle hurdles, woven from split hazel, and gate hurdles, light portable panels used to pen sheep for grazing, dipping and shearing and to shelter them at lambing. Wattle has been used in Britain since the Neolithic, and the hurdle trade flourished from the Middle Ages, particularly in Dorset. Unusually for the Red List, it retains a sizeable workforce and a number of trainees.

Category: Basketry

Skeined willow working makes fine baskets, chair seats and handles from willow split into thin, shaved strips called skeins. The technique probably originated in Germany in the fifteenth century; in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, larger city workshops kept a skein specialist, and London silversmiths used skeined willow to insulate teapot and coffee pot handles. No one practises it full-time.

Category: Basketry

Withy pots are crab and lobster pots woven from willow, made along the coasts of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, south-west Wales, the Isles of Scilly and Ireland. The pots appear in paintings from around four hundred years ago and are far older; the skills passed down through fishing families rather than in writing. One person makes them professionally. Heritage Crafts classes it as resurgent, with new entrants improving its outlook.

Category: Metal

Arrowsmithing is the forging of historically accurate arrowheads in wrought iron or steel. Arrowheads were made in stone, bone and flint long before metal, and the forged forms developed through the Iron Age and the medieval period to suit different targets and armour. Two people work professionally, and two apprentices are training through the Craft Guild of Traditional Bowyers and Fletchers.

CraftGate note: A specialist forging discipline adjacent to CraftGate's Blacksmithing & Heritage Metalwork track.

Category: Metal

Hand chain making forms chain link by link by fire welding. Cradley Heath in the Black Country was the centre of the trade in the nineteenth century, when heavy chain was made by men in factories and lighter hand-hammered chain by women and children, often in very poor conditions. No one now makes chain professionally; the skill survives through volunteers at the Mushroom Green Chain Shop and demonstrators at the Black Country Living Museum.

CraftGate note: Fire welding is a core skill shared with CraftGate's Blacksmithing & Heritage Metalwork track.

Category: Glass

Copper wheel engraving cuts designs into glass using copper discs mounted on a lathe, fed with abrasive paste. Developed by the Romans and revived in Europe, it reached Britain in the seventeenth century. A handful of engravers remain, in London, Stourbridge and Edinburgh, with no trainees.

Category: Metal

Coppersmithing makes objects from copper by hand: cookware, jugs, dishes, lanterns, coal scuttles, ecclesiastical fittings and sculpture. Copperworking in Britain goes back to the Bronze Age, and the making of copper pots and pans was at its height in the eighteenth century. Only a handful of people now offer the full range of traditional coppersmithing skills.

Category: Other

Diamond cutting is the cutting and polishing of rough diamonds into finished stones for jewellery and decorative work, a specialised trade practised in Britain since the fourteenth century. It is now concentrated in Hatton Garden and Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter, with between six and ten cutters and two trainees.

Category: Metal

Engine turning, or guilloche, engraves intricate repeating patterns into metal, usually precious metal, using a fixed cutter on an engine-turning machine. It grew as a distinct specialism in the eighteenth century and was long practised as trade work for jewellers, watchmakers and silversmiths. Between six and ten people work at a professional level, with one trainee.

Category: Metal

Maille making produces riveted mail armour from scratch, drawing and riveting each ring and tailoring the garment by traditional methods. The earliest finds date from the fourth century BC; maille was made across Europe and in Britain, and was still in use in the twentieth century by tank crews and butchers. A few people make it professionally, with two trainees.

Category: Metal, Wood

Plane making produces hand planes for woodworking, in wood or as metal-bodied infill planes. Professional plane making in Britain is documented from the seventeenth century, and wooden planes dominated until industrial production took over. Between six and ten makers work today, several at the very top of an international high-end market.

Category: Metal, Wood

Traditional saw making produces hand saws with steel blades and wooden handles. Hand saws were refined in the Georgian period as new timbers such as mahogany required specialised cutting, and Sheffield became the centre of the trade. A few makers remain, in Sheffield and Scarborough, with one trainee.

Category: Metal

Hand scissor making forges, grinds, sets and finishes scissors and shears using traditional techniques. Sheffield has been a centre of metalworking for centuries and of scissor making since the eighteenth century. Around twenty Sheffield firms made scissors thirty years ago; two businesses and one independent maker remain, and recent training has brought new makers through.

Category: Metal

Silver spinning shapes a flat silver disc into a hollow form on a lathe, pressing it over a former, or chuck, as it turns. It produces trophies, cups and vessels at a range of scales, and spinners also make and maintain their own tools and chucks. There were hundreds of spinners in the 1950s; around eight now work professionally, mostly as sole traders.

Category: Metal

Traditional spade making produces spades and shovels with hand-forged heads, usually fitted with wooden handles. Spades were essential agricultural and building tools for centuries, and from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries smiths forged iron heads from local materials. One maker of forged spades remains.

CraftGate note: A forging discipline adjacent to CraftGate's Blacksmithing & Heritage Metalwork track.

Category: Metal

Tinsmithing makes and repairs objects from tinplate, iron coated in tin, and was often combined with copper working, as the tools are almost identical. Hand working of tinplate in England can be traced to the early eighteenth century. One professional tinsmith remains, with a few part-time practitioners and two trainees.

Category: Metal

Armour making produces plate armour and helmets by hand, as historically worn in battle. Plate armour developed in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, and the Armourers' Company was established in London in the fourteenth century. Around eight people work professionally today, with interns at Lancaster Armoury.

Category: Glass

Brilliant cutting incises patterns into flat glass with a rotating stone wheel, then polishes the cuts with felt wheels and powders. Evolving from techniques used on heavy lead crystal, it reached its height in the brilliant period of around 1876 to 1920, when sparkling cut glass was widely used in pub and shop fronts. Between eleven and twenty people work at a professional level.

Category: Metal

Folding knife making produces pocket knives by hand. Sheffield's cutlery trade dates back to the thirteenth century, and pocket knives, originally called spring knives, have been made there since the mid to late seventeenth century. Between twenty and fifty people work in the trade, with a small number of trainees at Sheffield firms.

Category: Metal, Stone

Hand engraving decorates metal and stone with traditional gravers, for purposes ranging from firearms and royal seals to jewellery, coinage and printing plates. It developed as a distinct craft in the fourteenth century. Around forty to fifty professionals work in the UK, focused on London and the south, though none now specialises in watch engraving.

Category: Metal, Stone

Hand grinding shapes, sharpens and polishes blades on a grindstone, a distinct stage in the making of cutlery and edge tools between forging and handling. In Sheffield, grinders were historically self-employed, renting space in grinding workshops. Between eleven and twenty grinders work professionally, with one trainee.

Category: Metal

Lorinery is the making of bits, buckles, spurs, stirrups and other metal fittings for horse tack, together with saddle trees. Walsall has been the centre of the trade since its nineteenth-century expansion, driven by empire and the Napoleonic Wars. Around thirty people work in it, including one large maker and several saddle-tree firms.

Category: Metal

Trade pewter working shapes pewter, a tin alloy, by casting, spinning, pressing, rolling and hand forming. The pewter trade was historically centred on Sheffield and Birmingham, producing tankards, flasks and domestic ware. Five businesses now work sheet pewter and one works cast pewter, with two trainees. It was a new entry in 2025; studio pewter work is assessed separately as viable.

Category: Metal

The allied trades support the silversmith's work: spinning, chasing and repoussé, casting, wire drawing, buffing, polishing and plating. They reached their peak in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the spread of household silver. A new entry in 2025, they are now carried by small firms and individual specialists.

Category: Leather

Glove making cuts, sews and finishes gloves, chiefly in leather. Gloves have long carried status as well as function, and English glove making grew into a substantial trade, centred on Somerset among other places, through the nineteenth century. Four companies and one independent maker remain, in Somerset, Merseyside and London.

Category: Leather

Horse collar making produces collars for heavy and driving horses, traditionally with a leather or serge outer and a rye straw filling, shaped to fit the individual horse. Saddlery, collar making and harness making were once separate trades; collar making is now usually offered as part of harness making. Four specialist collar makers remain, with a few more saddlers able to restore collars.

Category: Leather

Parchment and vellum are writing materials made from prepared animal skin: vellum from calf, parchment from sheep and goat. Properly made, they outlast any paper, as the fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus shows. Skins are also used for drums, bookbinding and conservation. William Cowley in Newport Pagnell is the last parchment maker in the UK, with two makers and one apprentice.

Context: In 2015 a proposal to stop printing Acts of Parliament on vellum threatened the firm's survival; Heritage Crafts showed the claimed savings were overstated and campaigned against the change.

Category: Leather

Oak bark tanning converts raw hide into leather using tannin from real oak bark, in a slow process largely carried out by hand in pits. The method reaches back to the Bronze Age and produces exceptionally durable leather. Two businesses practise it full-time and two part-time.

Category: Leather

Whip making produces and restores carriage driving whips and other equestrian whips. Whips appear in medieval illustrations, including bow-top whips in the Luttrell Psalter of around 1330, and the craft reached its height in the mid nineteenth century, when baleen was used in the bow. One company and a few part-time makers remain.

Category: Leather, Other

Falconry furniture is the equipment used in falconry: hoods, jesses, gloves, bells and related accessories. The craft has followed the fortunes of the sport, practised widely until firearms spread in the seventeenth century and revived from the 1960s. Furniture was historically made by local saddlers, glovers and smiths. A few people work professionally.

Category: Other

Horn, antler and bone working turns these materials into vessels, spoons, combs, handles and decorative items. Horn objects survive from Sutton Hoo and the Coppergate excavations in York, and in the Middle Ages horn workshops grew up around major cattle markets. The craft was also widely practised in Romani and Scottish Traveller communities. Between eleven and twenty horn workers remain.

Category: Leather

Handsewn shoe and boot making, traditionally called cordwaining, includes last making, pattern cutting and closing the uppers. London's Cordwainer Ward recalls the generations of makers who built its reputation for fine footwear. Between twenty and fifty people practise professionally; Heritage Crafts is reviewing these figures with the sector.

Category: Wood

Last makers carve the wooden forms on which shoes are designed and made, and tree makers produce the shoe and boot trees that keep footwear in shape. Lasts were made for left and right feet, with accurate sizing and toe spring, only from the nineteenth century. One person makes fully custom lasts for sale, with others customising blanks in-house and a few tree makers, mainly in Northampton and Eastbourne.

Category: Leather

Vegetable tanning converts hide into leather using plant-derived tannins. All tanning was done this way until chrome salts arrived in the nineteenth century. Around sixty people work in vegetable tanning in the UK, with one trainee.

Category: Paper

Fore-edge painting applies an image to the fanned edges of a book's pages. In its vanishing form the edges are then gilded or marbled, so the painting disappears when the book is closed and reappears when it is fanned. The earliest examples date from around 1660, with a revival in the late eighteenth century. One vanishing fore-edge painter and two other fore-edge painters remain.

Category: Paper

Commercial hand papermaking forms sheets by hand with a mould and deckle in batch production. Paper reached Europe from China via the Islamic world, and British hand mills operated from the fifteenth century. Between six and ten people make paper commercially, with one apprentice at the Paper Foundation.

Category: Textile, Paper, Other

Block printing prints wallpaper and fabric by hand from carved blocks, traditionally of wood, building up a design one colour at a time. It is among the oldest printing techniques in the world and has been practised in Britain since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One commercial company prints in quantity, with seven apprentices, alongside a few dozen textile and wallpaper printers.

Category: Metal, Paper

Illumination decorates manuscripts with gold leaf laid on a raised gesso base and burnished to a bright shine, together with colour. It flourished in early medieval Christian manuscripts, where gold signified both devotion and the patron's status. Two or three people practise it professionally.

Category: Paper, Other

Letterpress prints from hand-set metal and wood type on a variety of presses. It was the standard form of printing from Gutenberg and Caxton in the fifteenth century until offset printing took over in the twentieth. Between eleven and twenty people print professionally, with many more working part-time, and the craft is taught within some art and design degrees.

Category: Paper, Other

Stone lithography is a printmaking process in which the artist draws directly onto limestone, producing prints with the subtlety of a drawing or painting. It reached its height in the nineteenth century and was one of the first methods for colour posters. Between eleven and twenty lithographers work professionally, usually alongside other printmaking.

Category: Paper, Other

Marbling floats ink or paint on a prepared bath and transfers the pattern to paper, producing designs resembling stone. This entry covers highly complex, repeatable patterns that require great skill. The technique travelled from East Asia through Persia and Turkey to Europe, and was used in British bookbinding from the seventeenth century. Between eleven and twenty people marble professionally.

Category: Other

Pigment making creates coloured particles for paint from minerals, metals, plants and animals using mechanical and chemical processes. Many pigments take their names from the places where their raw materials were found. Seven commercial pigment makers and teachers work in the UK, alongside artists who make their own.

Category: Metal, Wood

Type founding manufactures the metal and wood type used in letterpress printing. It began with letterpress in the fifteenth century. No one now casts type by hand commercially; between six and ten people machine-cast type, with a few making wood type and two trainees.

Category: Other

Graining and marbling are decorative painting techniques that imitate fine woods and marbles. Practised since antiquity, they flourished in Britain from the Georgian to the Victorian period, partly because real marble and exotic timbers were scarce or costly, and they survive across historic interiors. Between twenty and fifty skilled practitioners work full or part-time.

CraftGate note: A heritage decorative finish found throughout historic interiors, with an existing CITB-funded short-course route.

Category: Glass

Cut crystal glass making blows and hand-cuts decorative lead crystal for tableware and lighting. In 1674 George Ravenscroft patented the addition of lead oxide to glass, producing a heavier, more brilliant crystal that became a hallmark of British craftsmanship. Between six and ten cutters remain, in Stourbridge, Cumbria and Northern Ireland. It was a new entry in 2025.

Category: Glass

Glass eye making produces ocular prostheses from cryolite glass, which is highly biocompatible and free of chemical additives. Glass eyes were once the standard prosthesis in the UK before acrylic replaced them. Two people now make them; the ocularist who reintroduced the craft had to travel to Latvia to learn it.

Category: Ceramic

This entry covers the skilled hand processes of industrial pottery: modelling, mould making, throwing, turning, jollying, pressing, casting and hand decoration. The Staffordshire Potteries became a centre of ceramic production in the early eighteenth century on the strength of local clay and coal, and firms such as Wedgwood and Spode led the industrial revolution in ceramics. These skills are distinct from studio pottery, which is thriving. A 2021 study with Staffordshire University found some hand production skills down to one or two people, and none at all in others.

Category: Glass, Other

Neon making bends glass tubing by hand over gas burners to form lettering and shapes, which glow when filled with neon or argon and charged with high voltage. Neon was discovered at University College London in 1898 and spread through signage from the 1920s. Twenty-seven professionals work in twenty-four businesses, with no trainees.

Category: Glass

Scientific glassblowing shapes borosilicate glass into laboratory apparatus to precise specifications. It developed in the twentieth century as glass became central to scientific work, separating from studio glass as a precision discipline. Several hundred people work in the field full- or part-time, many in universities, with around twelve trainees.

Category: Other

Bow making produces, repairs and restores bows for violins, violas, cellos and basses. The craft probably developed in England in the seventeenth century, and bow design changed greatly between 1750 and 1800, when pernambuco became the standard wood. Between six and ten makers work full-time, with a similar number part-time.

Category: Metal, Wood

This entry covers transverse concert flutes on the Boehm system, usually with metal bodies, sometimes wooden. The modern concert flute was first made in the UK in the nineteenth century, following Theobald Boehm's designs of the 1830s and 1840s. Since the Second World War, British flute manufacture has largely ceased; three or four people make flute bodies and five or six make head joints.

Category: Other

Britain has a piano-making tradition of more than two hundred years, and around 1900 some 360 British makers supplied pianos worldwide, played by Chopin and Liszt among others. The industry has almost disappeared; one business with six to ten craftspeople remains, together with one maker of piano hammers.

Category: Wood, Leather

This entry covers bellows-blown and smaller bagpipes, including Northumbrian pipes, border and pastoral pipes, Scottish smallpipes and uilleann pipes; Highland pipe making is assessed separately. The first written record of bagpipes in England is in the household accounts of Edward I in 1285 to 1286, and in Scotland around 1400. Between eleven and twenty makers work professionally, with a similar number part-time.

Category: Other

Free reed instruments, including accordions, melodeons, concertinas and harmonicas, sound as air passes a reed vibrating in a frame. The accordion arrived in Britain from Germany around 1828, and the concertina was developed in England soon after. Between eleven and twenty makers work today.

Category: Other

Harp making builds harps by hand, from small folk and lever harps to larger concert instruments. The harp is among the oldest instruments in the world; frame harps developed in western Europe from the eighth century, and Ireland and Scotland developed distinctive forms. Between eleven and twenty makers work professionally, with a few trainees.

Category: Other

This entry covers the making and repair of early keyboard instruments such as harpsichords and clavichords. Harpsichord making came to Britain from continental Europe and reached a peak around 1780, leading into the British piano industry. A substantial body of skill has been built up over the last thirty to forty years, but only a handful of makers remain.

Category: Wood, Other

Lute making builds lutes and related instruments. The lute reached Britain in the late Middle Ages and became central to court and consort music in the Tudor and Stuart periods; the craft was revived in the twentieth century. Between eleven and twenty makers work professionally. It was a new entry in 2025.

Category: Metal, Wood

Mechanical organ making builds and restores organs that play automatically, from barrel organs to later pneumatic book and roll-playing instruments, associated with fairgrounds, dance halls and street music. The craft developed from the eighteenth century. Six people work professionally, with no trainees.

Category: Other

Organ building makes, restores, tunes and maintains pipe organs, mainly in churches and public buildings. One of the earliest recorded organs in Britain was installed at Winchester Cathedral around 980, and the craft peaked in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Between eleven and twenty firms offer the full range of organ building, with more providing tuning and maintenance.

CraftGate note: Closely tied to the care of historic churches and their fabric.

Category: Other

Percussion instrument making covers a broad family, including cymbals, marimbas, xylophones, timpani and tubular bells, each demanding its own materials and skills. Most percussion instruments are now mass-produced, and makers specialise to survive. Between twenty and fifty people work in the field; cymbal making in particular rests on two practitioners, with three trainees.

Category: Other

Woodwind making produces clarinets, oboes, bassoons, saxophones, wooden flutes and recorders. Early woodwinds such as recorders and shawms were made in Britain by the Tudor period. Between twenty and fifty reed instrument makers and eleven to twenty wooden flute and recorder makers work in small workshops around the country.

Category: Other

An orrery is a mechanical model of the solar system, made for centuries as a teaching aid. The clockmakers George Graham and Thomas Tompion built what is considered the first modern orrery around 1704. One person makes orreries full-time, in Norfolk, with one or two part-time makers in Essex.

Category: Other

This entry covers the hand making and restoration of scientific and optical instruments, including barometers, compasses, telescopes and cameras. These were once major British trades. Today three people restore and repair barometers, one makes compasses and navigational instruments, and one makes cameras.

Category: Wood

Spinning wheel making produces human-powered wheels for hand spinning yarn. Spinning wheels probably reached Britain from Europe in the thirteenth century and evolved into treadle-driven machines central to the wool and linen trades. No one makes them full-time; one or two part-time makers remain, one of whom may be the only maker of great wheels in Europe.

Category: Metal, Glass

Watch face enamelling makes watch dials from vitreous enamel fused onto a metal base. Enamel dials appeared in Britain in the mid eighteenth century, when the UK made most of the world's watches and enamelling was a widespread trade. Highly prized by collectors, the craft now survives on a very small scale in Glasgow and Birmingham, with between five and ten enamellers and one trainee.

Category: Other

Traditional watchmaking makes, restores and repairs mechanical watches by hand, largely by analogue methods. British horologists shaped the history of timekeeping, and the first successful marine chronometer was completed in London in 1759. Between eleven and twenty independent master watchmakers work in the UK, with a larger number of technicians and trainees.

Category: Other

Traditional clockmaking makes, restores and repairs mechanical clocks, including turret and carriage clocks, by hand. The UK's clockmaking history begins with mechanical tower clocks in the fourteenth century. Between fifty and one hundred people make clocks from start to finish, with others working in conservation and restoration.

CraftGate note: Turret clocks are part of the fabric of many historic churches and public buildings.

Category: Other

Globe making produces and restores terrestrial, celestial and other globes. The earliest English globes were made by Emery Molyneux; the oldest surviving example, dated 1592, is at Petworth House. Three businesses and three individuals now make globes, on the Isle of Wight and in London, with two trainees.

Category: Other

Hand spectacle making produces frames from a range of materials. Spectacles came into widespread use in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the British industry flourished through the supply of glasses to First World War troops and then through the NHS, until the NHS frame range was abolished in 1985 and the market deregulated. Between eleven and twenty makers work today.

Category: Wood

The currach is an Irish boat with a light wooden frame traditionally covered with hide, now more often canvas, built in many regional forms for use at sea and on rivers; in Cork, Kerry and Waterford it is called the naomhóg. Light, buoyant and cheap to build, it can be launched and beached in very exposed places. No one builds currachs professionally in Northern Ireland, and one trainee is recorded. The tradition cannot be separated from that of the Republic of Ireland.

Category: Wood

Figurehead and ship carving designs and carves decorative woodwork for ships, including figureheads, stern work and trailboards. The golden age of ship carving ran from around 1630 to 1780, and figureheads remained a feature of British ships through the nineteenth century. One professional carver remains, in Oxfordshire. It was a new entry in 2025.

Category: Wood

Wooden fishing net making constructs landing nets with frames of steamed and bent ash or oak, and their poles. Until the early twentieth century most nets were made this way; metal, then carbon fibre and alloy, replaced them almost entirely. No one makes them full-time, and one part-time maker remains.

Category: Wood

Traditional wooden boat building builds, restores and repairs boats in planked or skin-on-frame construction with mechanical fixings and traditional finishes. Between twenty and fifty builders work on all aspects full-time, with many more part-time and over fifty students at boatbuilding schools, which also teach modern methods.

Category: Wood

The coracle is a small, light, keel-less boat that one person can carry, its name from the Welsh corwgl. Coracles have been used since at least the Bronze Age, for fishing and transport, in many regional forms. Calico-covered coracles are widely made on short courses; hide-covered boats by very few. In South Wales around six people can carry out every stage, from selecting timber to sealing the hull, with only one fully skilled craftsman.

Category: Wood

Oar, mast and spar making shape wooden oars, masts and spars for boats, crafts that share skills and techniques; spar makers sometimes make flagpoles too. Between eleven and twenty people work professionally, with only one full-time maker of wooden flagpoles.

Category: Other

Traditional rigging is the system of ropes, wire and chain that supports and controls a historic sailing vessel's masts, spars and sails. Rigging was a full-time trade before the seventeenth century, and historically accurate period rigging developed from the 1950s. Six UK companies offer traditional rigging, each employing one or two skilled riggers, mainly in the south of England. It was a new entry in 2025.

Category: Other

Rope making twists or braids strands of natural or synthetic fibre into rope. Historically the fibre depended on what was locally available; from the thirteenth century long rope walks were built to make rope at length. Between eleven and twenty people make rope professionally, including makers of church bell ropes.

Category: Textile

Traditional sail making shapes sails in three dimensions and hand-stitches the bolt rope and fittings around their edges. Sails have moved from flax to cotton to synthetic cloth, but the aim of a stable, well-shaped sail is unchanged. Between twenty and fifty sailmakers work professionally, with eleven to twenty trainees.

Category: Paper

Fan making produces folding fans, traditionally with wooden sticks and guards, known as the monture, and a painted paper leaf. The folding fan probably originated in Japan and reached Europe through trade with the Far East, where it was at first reserved for royalty and the nobility. One professional fan maker remains, with a few part-time makers and one trainee.

Category: Metal, Wood

Hat blocks are the wooden or metal forms on which hats are shaped and stiffened, each made to the style and size of the finished hat, often with separate blocks for crown and brim. Structured felt hats worn from the fourteenth century would have needed such forms. Three businesses make hat blocks, in Bedfordshire, Wiltshire and the West Midlands, with two trainees.

Category: Other

Plume making produces woven horsehair and mounted feather plumes for military full dress, parades, ceremonial occasions and heavy horse decoration. Plumes reached their height in Britain in the late eighteenth century, and the British Army still wears around sixty patterns. One professional plume maker remains, with a few part-time makers.

Category: Other

Pointe shoe making produces the shoes ballet dancers wear for pointe work. Dancers wore modified soft slippers until the early twentieth century, when dancing en pointe became more popular and the stiffened pointe shoe developed. Between twenty and fifty makers work in two businesses, in London and Leicester, with three apprentices.

Category: Other

Hat making produces felt hats such as trilbies and fedoras, fabric hats and caps, and uniform hats by an organised sequence of processes. Felt hat making in its modern form began in England around 1500, and the Company of Feltmakers was established in 1604. The industry remains centred on Luton, with between eleven and twenty companies.

CraftGate note: Linked to straw hat making, hat plaiting and hat block making, all on the Red List.

Category: Other

Umbrella making produces umbrellas and parasols by hand and machine. Umbrellas were in use in England by the early eighteenth century, decades before Jonas Hanway is often credited with introducing them. Between one and five companies make umbrellas in the UK, in London, Croydon, Manchester and South Yorkshire.

Category: Other

Bicycle frame making hand-builds bespoke brazed frames, typically the diamond frame of two triangles that became standard after the chain-driven safety bicycle of around 1885. Between eleven and twenty builders make their main income from it, with a similar number part-time.

Category: Wood

Coach building makes and restores horse-drawn coaches and carriages. Enclosed coaches appeared in England in the sixteenth century, and coach building became a substantial trade, often reached through wheelwrighting and wainwrighting. Between six and ten coach builders work today, mostly on restoration.

CraftGate note: Shares a progression route with wheelwrighting and wainwrighting, adjacent to CraftGate's Heritage Joinery track.

Category: Textile, Other

Coach trimming upholsters and fits the interiors of carriages and classic cars. It began with horse-drawn carriages and followed them into the motor car; today it serves vintage and classic vehicles, distinct in technique from modern auto-trimming. Between eleven and twenty trimmers work professionally.

Category: Other

These are the crafts of building, restoring and decorating the vardo and living waggon, practised within Romani, Gypsy, Irish Traveller and Showmen communities and their family lineages of builders and painters. The golden era of the vardo ran from around 1860 to 1920, and the horse-drawn 'waggon time' of the 1940s to 1960s remains in living memory. Between ten and eighteen makers and knowledge keepers work to a recognised standard, with around seven younger people being trained informally.

Category: Ceramic

Clay pipe making produces tobacco pipes from clay, historically by press moulding and more recently by slip casting. Pipe making began in London around 1580 to 1585 and spread so widely that for 250 years almost every town had a pipe maker; the industry peaked around 1700. Three people make clay pipes professionally, with one trainee.

Category: Other

Traditional matte painting creates landscapes and settings for film by hand, often painted on glass, to extend or replace sets that would be impossible or too costly to build. It flourished from the 1940s to the 1990s at studios such as Pinewood and Shepperton. A handful of practitioners remain. It was a new entry in 2025.

Category: Stone

Pietra dura inlays precisely cut and polished hardstones, such as marble, lapis and jasper, to create designs in furniture, tabletops and architectural elements, sometimes described as painting in stone. Developed in Renaissance Italy and perfected in Florence under the Medici, it was practised in Britain from the eighteenth century, peaked in the nineteenth and fell out of use in the twentieth. One professional maker, in Northamptonshire, has reintroduced it. It was a new entry in 2025 and is classed as resurgent.

CraftGate note: Relevant to the conservation of architectural interiors and historic furniture.

Category: Other

Canal art is the decorative painting of narrowboats and their fittings, with roses, castles and lettering in recognised traditional styles. It grew with the waterway trading and coal networks of the nineteenth century, around hubs such as Birmingham and the Black Country, and is associated with boat people as a historic Traveller culture. Between eleven and twenty-one craftspeople work to a professional standard on new and historic work.

Category: Other

Fairground art decorates rides, panels and lettering with painted scenes, carving and gilding, often in genuine gold leaf. It developed in the nineteenth century, when a painted lion or polar bear at the fair might be the only one most people ever saw. Around eight commercial fairground artists work today, with others in the Showmen community painting their own rides.

Category: Wood

Marionette making carves and strings traditional wooden puppets operated from above. Puppetry is recorded in Britain from the fifteenth century. A handful of makers work professionally; in 2024 and 2025, eleven makers completed a carving course at the Little Angel Theatre supported by Heritage Crafts.

Category: Other

Petrakivka, also spelt Petrykivka, is a Ukrainian decorative painting tradition from the village of Petrykivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region, dating from the eighteenth century, with flowers, birds and natural imagery in fine, vivid brushwork. In the UK it is practised within Ukrainian diaspora and refugee communities, including families who settled after the Second World War and the many who have arrived since 2022. It was a new entry in 2025 and is designated culturally distinctive.

Category: Other

Pysanky are Ukrainian Easter eggs decorated by a wax-resist method, building patterns in layers of wax and dye. The tradition has pre-Christian roots and became associated with Easter after 988. In the UK it is practised within Ukrainian diaspora and refugee communities. It was a new entry in 2025 and is designated culturally distinctive.