Saving the nation's heritage for 25 years

17/10/2019

As Historic England publishes its annual Heritage At Risk Register, we celebrate some of the places we have helped save over the past quarter of a century.

A derelict London fire station, the wreck of an 18th-century warship and an art school with connections to Fleetwood Mac - these are just three sites saved for the nation thanks to National Lottery funding.

Peckham Fire Station, HMS Invincible and Moseley School of Art - which boasts Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie as a former pupil - are among 310 historic sites which have been taken off Historic England’s Heritage At Risk Register in 2019.

They are also a fraction of the hundreds of buildings and places across England which have been saved over the past 25 years thanks to projects and people funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

“The National Lottery is celebrating its 25th Birthday this year and, looking at the list of 310 important historic buildings and sites that have been saved this year alone, it’s clear that without National Lottery investment many could have been lost forever,” said Ros Kerslake, The National Lottery Heritage Fund CEO.

Since The National Lottery’s first draw in 1994, our funding has helped save some of the nation’s most beloved places.

These include:

Newman Brothers Coffin Works in Birmingham, a former factory turned popular museum
Dreamland, Margate's vintage amusement park
Brown Bear pit and kiosk, Dudley Zoo
Wilton's Music Hall in London
Stowe landscape gardens in Buckinghamshire

The importance of resilience

The importance of strengthening the resilience of our heritage is a key priority of our current Strategic Funding Framework.

Ros added: “Over the past 25 years we have funded many hundreds of buildings that have been removed from the list, but there’s still plenty of work to do, which is why we have made investing in all types of heritage at risk one of our main priorities over the next five years.”

Historic England’s At Risk Register this year has seen 247 sites added which are at risk of being lost forever as a result of neglect, decay or inappropriate development.

25 years of funding for heritage

Over the past 25 years, The National Lottery Heritage Fund has been the largest dedicated grant funder of the UK’s heritage. We’ve awarded £8bn to more than 44,000 projects across the UK.