National Lottery Heritage Grants

Crafting our Homes – Stories from African Caribbean Seniors

Applicant: Heritage Community Crafts CIC

Project description: To honour the heritage of the Windrush Generation in a new format, focusing on home life of the African and Caribbean people as they made a new home in the UK. The 'Home' carpet artwork is to be the focal point and the base of a new large artwork, to be displayed in a public space such as The Museum of the Home.

Decision: Award grant of £10,600

Celebrating 40 years of Hackney City Farm

Applicant: Hackney City Farm Ltd

Project description: To produce a film covering some of the highlights and successes of Hackney City Farm and record stories and memories of people involved in the project. To create an archive of the farm’s work, shown at a celebration event and then digitally available on the farm’s website.

Decision: Award grant of £13,200

Children of World War Two

Applicant: Weymouth Area Development Trust CIC

Project description: To collect oral histories from people who were children in the Second World War and to dramatise them with young people as a series of short radio dramas for community radio, podcasts and displays. Installed as part of a Nothe Fort exhibition. 

Decision: Award grant of £21,000

The Big Dig! Carsluick community excavation and events programme

Applicant: Godolphin Cross Community Association

Project description: To conduct an archaeological excavation at the Carsluick Round, with a programme of training and engagement for young people and the wider community. To raise awareness and recruit volunteers and produce a legacy of material, such as website content, an illustrated story book on prehistoric Godolphin and storytelling sessions with local schools.

Decision: Award grant of £25,596

Eyez from the Future – Gloucester's Breaking Community: Past and Present

Applicant: Your Next Move YNM CIC

Project description: To engage with Gloucester’s residents to collect oral histories, create an exhibition and documentary film and connect new and diverse communities with breaking (breakdancing). To leave a legacy in Gloucestershire Archives, preserving the rich history of the city’s role in breaking in the UK.

Decision: Award grant of £26,015

The Gansey Gathering

Applicant: The Conscious Sisters CIC

Project description: To bring the gansey, a heritage fishing jumper, back to Plymouth. The project will provide a place for people to learn to knit their own gansey and to create environmental stewards and volunteers through exploring sustainable fashion. It will produce a social media campaign and pop-up exhibition at community venues around the city, laying the foundation for The Conscious Sisters to support women who want to knit for money.

Decision: Award grant of £26,725

The Cab Road Tunnel

Applicant: This is Wyld Art

Project description: To reveal and investigate the history of the Cab Road tunnel beneath Brighton railway station. To engage with residents of Brighton’s Phoenix Estate to research, learn and document the Cab Road’s history. To allow residents of Phoenix Estate to develop knowledge and skills, produce a new heritage resource, and to celebrate local heritage for the wider community.

Decision: Award grant of £27,293

Rewind:1970s – Sharing our Heritage through Arts & Culture

Applicant: Arts Uplift Community Interest Company

Project description: To engage diverse vulnerable older adults in six Oxfordshire community hospitals and the Museum of Oxford, collecting living memories from 1970s Oxfordshire via oral history and six music and dance workshops. To inspire a new, dementia-friendly 1970s-themed scrapbook highlighting Oxfordshire's cultural significance.

Decision: Reject

Teffont Archaeology Project: Sustaining Pathways to Access

Applicant: The Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum Trust

Project description: To train volunteers in archaeological excavation and post-excavation skills, improve their welfare, widen access to heritage, and help build a sustainable regional community archaeology network. To share the work through a redeveloped website an open day, talks and activities.

Decision: Award grant of £62,633

Jane Austen 2025

Applicant: The Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society

Project description: To commemorate 250 years since the birth of Jane Austen, connecting new audiences with her life and work, particularly the important connections to Dorset. This will be done through an exhibition, workshops, school and community outputs, volunteer research projects and a public programme of events and activities, with new digital content including an online exhibition on the website.

Decision: Award grant of £94,220

Mujib and Britain: A Special Relationship (1956–1975)

Applicant: Easthands

Project description: The creation of a commemorative book dedicated to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, architect, and founder and leader who initiated Bangladesh independence. To document and showcase his 11 visits to the United Kingdom, utilising detailed narratives and photographs to highlight his significant contributions and influence.

Decision: Reject

Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London

Applicant: Fashion and Textile Museum

Project description: To create an archive and exhibition of clothing, interviews and images of London's street fashion in the mid-1980s, with Taboo nightclub and Leigh Bowery as a starting point. To explore how the economy of London and the impact of lives lost due to AIDS enabled designers to express their individuality, and readdress the work of designers often overlooked.

Decision: Reject

St Johns Church tombs, railings and gates restoration project

Applicant: Slimbridge Parish Council

Project description: To restore 24 listed tombs, iron railings and entrance gates of the St Johns Church grounds in Slimbridge. To conserve history for future generations of the parish for visitors.

Decision: Award grant of £116,345

The Pop-Up Charity Shop of Memories

Applicant: Bristol Community FM Ltd

Project description: To create a pop-up charity shop in an empty high street retail unit in Bristol. This will be a community project in partnership with St Peters Hospice, University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol Museums and Watershed. The project will host an immersive and interactive sound art exhibition with donated items linked to audio clips about their histories, to include interviews from previous owners and content from local archives, as well as information on related sustainability and environmental issues.

Decision: Reject

Town Mill Regeneration – Improvements and Wider Engagement

Applicant: The Town Mill Trust Lyme Regis

Project description: To implement, preserve and sustain a new interpretation and physical design of the working water mill. To ensure a high-quality presentation to visitors and provide new volunteering and engagement opportunities for marginalised groups and individuals.

Decision: Award grant of £127,014

A chance to grow for Painswick Rococo Garden

Applicant: Painswick Rococo Garden Trust

Project description: To secure the garden’s future through professionally planned visitor facilities and business support. To increase wellbeing of outreach participants, increase skills of staff and volunteers and foster greater awareness of the garden’s unique heritage landscape, habitats, and organic horticulture.

Decision: Award grant of £128,915

Playback: Reactivating Community Video

Applicant: Goldsmiths' College

Project description: To digitise 30 videos from community video creators Graft on! and Fantasy Factory. To collaborate with filmmakers and produce eight new video oral history interviews with community video practitioners of the 1970s to the 1990s. To improve the London Community Video Archive’s digital presentation and create a new website.

Decision: Award grant of £129,067

Reviving Riverside

Applicant: MAKE Southwest

Project description: To carry out works to the Grade II listed Riverside Mill in Bovey Tracey, to make the building watertight and address damp penetration. To improve the organisational resilience of MAKE Southwest to continue to champion crafts in southwest England.

Decision: Award grant of £129,392

Heritage Engineering – Skills from the past preserved and developed for the future

Applicant: The 2874 Trust Limited

Project description: To retain, inspire and further develop skills in the existing volunteer workforce and recruit new volunteers to help ensure the preservation and development of heritage engineering skills within the sector.

Decision: Award grant of £151,200

New Voices for Old Stories (New Voices)

Applicant: Aston-Mansfield

Project description: To celebrate the rich heritage of Aston-Mansfield over the past 140 years, using extensive archive housed at Stratford Library, to inspire local young people to learn about Aston-Mansfield and their heritage, to develop heritage skills, and discover and retell stories from the past, in new ways.

Decision: Award grant of £153,494

Cheltenham's BIG Museum Project

Applicant: The Cheltenham Trust

Project description: To re-imagine and redisplay the collection at The Wilson Museum. To deepen public consultation and engagement, develop new co-produced collections and engagement strategy, and fit out the new access-focused spaces, creating relevant, dynamic collections.

Decision: Award grant of £192,950

A Monument to King Freddie

Applicant: Buganda Heritage Association (UK and Ireland)

Project description: A two-year project to save the heritage of King Freddie through the creation and installation of a commemorative statue. To increase access, inclusion and participation through a series of monthly related workshops for the Ugandan community, particularly young people aged 18–25, and an annual celebration dinner.

Decision: Reject

Museum Making: Transitioning the Museum of Bath at Work

Applicant: Bath Industrial Heritage Trust Ltd

Project description: To reposition the museum to tell the wider stories of Bath as a working, living city, with innovative interpretation and activity to engage wider audiences. The project aims to make the museum more resilient, and to become a community museum for Bath and about Bath.

Decision: Award grant of £241,918

Restoring and revealing Somerset House's Salt Stair and the history of the Salt Tax

Applicant: Somerset House Trust

Project description: To return the Salt Stair to its former glory, making it accessible to the public for the first time and deliver an associated heritage engagement programme. To explore the history of Somerset house and the Salt Tax through interpretation and activities including an exhibition, tours and heritage-based workshops for young people.

Decision: Award grant of £244,955

Reaching Greater Heights: Historic Grassland Restoration at Dover Castle and Dover Western Heights

Applicant: The English Heritage Trust

Project description: To pilot an integrated approach to built heritage and natural heritage conservation. The project will work with White Cliffs Countryside Partnership, Western Heights Preservation Society and Kent Wildlife Trust to clear invasive vegetation, restore lost species-rich grasslands, improve habitat connectivity and establish English Heritage’s first nature volunteering programme.

Decision: Award grant of £249,126

#HP TerraFirma: Ensuring a resilient future for English Riviera UNESCO Global Geopark

Applicant: The English Riviera Geopark Organisation Ltd

Project description: To strengthen foundations of the English Riviera UNESCO Global Geopark to achieve a more resilient organisation with a clear roadmap, delivery structure, robust business model and effective leadership. New engagement, strategies and resources will include website development, volunteer engagement, interpretation and education tools.

Decision: Award grant of £249,935

Seed to Fork

Applicant: The Chiswick House and Gardens Trust

Project description: To open new areas of the Grade I listed site and create a schools programme to engage young people’s curiosity about their local natural and historic environment. The project aims to connect young people with important heritage spaces, including the role in food production past and present, and to create new income streams to support organisational sustainability.

Decision: Award grant of £249,971

You Are Here: Digital stories celebrating a place and its people

Applicant: Paddington Development Trust

Project description: At the centre of the project is the Grade I listed St Mary Magdalene’s Church, situated in a diverse housing estate in North Westminster, London. The project aims to ensure the next generation is invested in the building, using co-created digital interpretation to re-animate the Victorian heritage relevant to contemporary visitors and local communities. Local young people will tell the story of the building’s journey towards net zero, seeding a lifelong connection to a local landmark.

Decision: Award grant of £249,999

Railway 200 Exhibition Train

Applicant: Network Rail Ltd

Project description: To develop a touring exhibition train to contain activities and content that tell the pioneering historical and cultural story of the railway. To use expert and innovative storytelling and activities to engage and inspire young people, raise awareness of the UK’s cultural and engineering heritage, and encourage them to consider a career in rail and STEM.

Decision: Award grant of £250,000

Meke UK – Veisisivi Meke (Meke Competition)

Applicant: Marama Alliance UK

Project description: To establish the first meke dance competitions in the UK for indigenous Fijians and to make it an annual event. To kick-start Fijians’ collective effort in practising and conserving their cultural heritage through meke.

Decision: Reject

Resurrect grassroot cricket in the Caribbean community

Applicant: Friends of the Caribbean

Project description: To resurrect and sustain grassroot cricket in the Milton Keynes and wider Buckinghamshire areas. To provide the foundation for the cricket club and unite people of Caribbean descent across the region to reflect their shared history and identity with cricket.

Decision: Reject

To Replace / Repair a Window on The East Side of The Main Church

Applicant: Ryde Methodist Church

Project description: To achieve a full replacement of an original stained glass window on the first floor of the main church building and to bring it back to the original way it was built in 1880.

Decision: Reject

Wildflower: Songs, stories and crafts celebrating summer

Applicant: Tidal Tales Collective CIC

Project description: To explore, preserve and pass on traditional songs and stories surrounding the ancient celebration of Old Litha/Midsummer, to promote and teach willow and corn work, both on the Heritage Craft Arts red list of endangered crafts, widening engagement with these declining forms and saving heritage.

Decision: Reject

South Asian Heritage Festival (with Kindle Corner)

Applicant: Kindle Corner CIC

Project description: To celebrate South Asian cultural heritage, break social and financial barriers, promote community cohesion and engage with the community in a manner which promotes the appreciation of different cultures, heritage, backgrounds and challenges.

Decision: Reject

Finding Folklore

Applicant: Finding Folklore

Project description: To explore, engage, research, and cultivate regional, working-class and minority English folk culture, mythology and legend with storytelling, exploration of social history, related heritage food recipes and folk music. The project aims to engage with minority regional heritage and identity, for audiences both within and outside of the UK, to encourage a positive, inclusive, progressive concept of Englishness and "folk".

Decision: Reject

Oxford Farmhouse pressing facility

Applicant: Oxford Farmhouse CIC

Project description: To improve and upgrade the fruit pressing facility, turn more waste fruit into a quality product, care for more fruit trees, and create a welcoming and safer place to support volunteers from the community.

Decision: Reject

Wetlands and Reedbeds. This is a Priority Habitat for the Greater London Authority (GLA)

Applicant: The Friends of Clapham Common

Project description: To create wetland habitat for wildlife and an educational resource for local schools. The project would renovate an existing derelict site on Clapham Common, providing habitat for amphibian life and invertebrates which spend parts of their lifecycle underwater. It would include a disability-access boardwalk through the site and a viewing deck for children.

Decision: Reject

The refugee journey from the Horn of Africa to London: their movement, displacement, and settlement

Applicant: Reconnection

Project description: To record the unique set of experiences that define the life course of refugees from the Horn of Africa who have settled in Brent. To give young refugees an opportunity to learn, gain transferable skills, make contributions to the community, and work with the older generation to represent, record, and share stories and life experiences that inform the heritage of people from the Horn of Africa.

Decision: Reject

Memory Lane: Music heritage

Applicant: The London DJ & MC Academy CIC

Project description: To capture and document the stories and memories of Enfield residents through interviews, podcasts, and the "Memory Lane" installation. The project aims to empower young people through digital skills development and create a space where young people and older adults from Enfield can connect, share stories, and learn from each other's experiences, ensuring Enfield's heritage is preserved.

Decision: Reject

Heritage is happiness 2

Applicant: Nene Tereza

Project description: To share Albanian heritage through storytelling, music, dance, costume and cooking. To capture stories passed down generationally during storytelling sessions, and share them to preserve the stories, heritage and different dialects of older Albanians. These will be shared with the local Enfield archive for future generations to learn from.

Decision: Reject

The Biodiversity Garden Centre Scheme – Giving nature a helping hand

Applicant: Naturezones Wildlife Education Trust

Project description: To encourage local citizen science and for Naturezones to increase engagement with more communities and individuals. To help communities understand why biodiversity in the natural environment is important and has a direct connection to the climate crisis.

Decision: Reject

Stapleton's Chantry: Centre for Education and Creative Arts

Applicant: Parochial Church Council of North Moreton All Saints

Project description: To establish All Saints Church as a centre of learning and creativity, and to restore the 13th-century stained glass window. A range of community events will help re-establish the church at the centre of the community and contribute funds to the commercial self-sufficiency of educational and artistic projects.

Decision: Reject

St Leonards Parish Church "Raise the Roof" appeal

Applicant: The Parochial Church Council of Upton St Leonards

Project description: To restore and preserve the Grade II* St Leonards Parish Church; to repair the roof, install an accessible toilet and create new heritage resources. The project aims for the church to become part of the historical and heritage activities that take place in the county such as the annual Gloucester History Festival.

Decision: Reject

Taking Southampton Forward – a programme of co-creation and collaboration built on consultation

Applicant: Southampton 2025 Trust

Project description: To facilitate a community led, culturally rich programme to transform Southampton. The project aims to strengthen and unite the city’s diverse communities, to collectively lead the change as creators, initiators, drivers and active participants to enable a more resilient, environmentally sustainable, inclusive future for Southampton’s people.

Decision: Award grant of £250,000