Save our skills!
From wagon making to crab pot weaving, the traditional crafts in danger of dying out
you’ll probably never need an orrery made, some damask weaved – or a hat plaited.
And soon you probably won’t be able to, even if you know what those skills entail.
They are among the dozens of British crafts that have been practised for centuries but are now in danger of vanishing forever. The Heritage Craft Association said skilled tradesmen and women – including flute makers, wainwrights and bell founders – are on the brink of disappearing as fewer people are learning the skills.
The association, of which Prince Charles is president, has now compiled a list of crafts at risk of dying out in a bid to save them. Mould and deckle making – used in papermaking – has already faded into history after the last practitioner died in 2017.
It joined techniques such as making cricket balls and lacrosse sticks, gold-beating and sieve-making, which have become extinct over the last ten years.
Researchers assessed 212 crafts still being practised in Britain, and 36 were deemed critically endangered. Half of those are newly classified, and include papermaking, damask weaving, millwrighting and hat plaiting. The making of orreries, mechanical solar system models that have been made for centuries as teaching aids, is also on the list. Flute making, and bell founding have all been upgraded from endangered to critically endangered, while umbrella making is now endangered.
Wainwrighting – the construction and repair of carts and wagons – was once a proud tradition but is now ‘at serious risk of no longer being practised’. Greg Rowland’s family can trace its connection to wainwrighting back to 1331, when his ancestors built the wagons that transported stone used to build Exeter Cathedral. The 48-year-old, who works in Colyton, Devon, said: ‘A wagon encapsulates the social history of an area. It shows the evolution of our forebears. If we lose them, we lose a huge part of our countryside life and history.’ one of the horse- drawn vehicles can take up to three months to complete, and can sell for between £2,000 and £5,000.
Making withy pots – used to catch crab and lobsters – is another new entry on the critically endangered list, and David French’s family has been making them for at least five generations. The 61-yearold from Plympton, Devon, said: ‘I used to watch my grandfather making them when I was a child.
‘It always stuck with me. I don’t want to see it lost. It’s a hard thing to explain to someone who hasn’t grown up with it.
‘I can trace these pots by looking at oil paintings going back 400 years. It probably goes back further. unless we can encourage people to take it up, we’ll see it die out.’
Daniel Carpenter, of the Heritage Craft Association, said: ‘These crafts are a part of our heritage, not just the objects they produce but the skills themselves.
‘like many traditional practices they are often too subtle to be revived from written sources or documentary films. They have to be kept alive through continual practice and one-to-one transmission.’ He added: ‘often, when a craft has gone it’s lost forever.’
Among the other critically endangered skills is reverse glass sign painting, the art of applying paint and metal leaf back-to-front on
panes. At one time, every town in Britain had about three practitioners. The plaiting of cereal crop straw into hats once occupied about 30,000 men, women and children in the 1860s.
And the hand weaving of patterned damask fabric on jacquard looms dates to the 17th century when it was sought after by royalty and aristocracy. Furniture made using willow basketwork techniques has been produced in the Somerset Levels for centuries, while making Fair Isle straw-backed chairs was a tradition in the Shetlands throughout the 1800s. Both techniques are now in critical danger, along with the skills needed to make traditional items like kishie baskets – used by Scottish crofters – and metal chain mail.
Crafts charity QEST said it has supported more than 500 craftspeople – enabling many of them to pass on their skills to others. Lord Snowdon, vice patron of the charity, said without intervention, our ‘cultural heritage would be seriously diminished’.