Explore the Red List of Endangered Crafts Showcase
Craftworks 2024 will play host to a variety of features for visitors to explore, all centred around the past, present and future of craft, including The Red List of Endangered Crafts Showcase.
What is the Red List?
We are proud to be working with Heritage Crafts, the national charity for traditional heritage crafts which works in partnership with the Government to showcase some of the craft skills which are in danger of becoming extinct in the UK.
The Heritage Crafts Red List of Endangered Crafts, first published in 2017, was the first report of its kind to rank traditional crafts by the likelihood they would survive to the next generation, based on intangible cultural heritage safeguarding principles, led by the Heritage Crafts Association, the only UK UNESCO-accredited NGO working primarily in the domain of traditional craftsmanship.
Visitors to the Red List showcase will be able to experience demonstrations of the below endangered craft skills.
Whitchurch Silk Mill
Whitchurch Silk Mill is the oldest working silk mill in Britain, having been built in 1813. It still uses historic machines and employs a team of highly skilled weavers to produce silk using traditional techniques.
Clockmakers
Established in 1631 to support a developing trade in London and protect the public from clocks of a poor standard, the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers has an important role today – to promote the industry and help train young clock and watchmakers.
Straw hat making
Hat maker Lucy Barlow practices the endangered art of machine sewing straw plait into hats. Lucy is the current holder of the President’s Award for Endangered Crafts, an award initiated by Heritage Crafts’ President HM King Charles III.
Lucy apprenticed with Phillip Somerville of Bond Street in the late 1970s and then went on to Paris to assist master milliner Jean Barthet on the collections of Yves St Laurent, Chanel, Balenciaga, Karl Lagerfeld and Claude Montana. Recently completing an MA in Menswear Millinery at the Royal College of Art, Lucy now plans to focus on finding ways to bring the skill to future generations and involve more diverse communities.
