Community heritage
![Visiting the 1950s hairdresser at Beamish Museum. Credit: Nigel Roddis The interior of a 1950s hairdresser's shop. A visitor is having their hair styled by a stylist in vintage clothing. A child sits in a high chair next to the visitor.](/sites/default/files/styles/main_image_desktop/public/media/imgs/Visiting%20the%201950s%20hairdresser%20at%20Beamish%20Museum%20credit%20Nigel%20Roddis%202.jpg.webp?itok=9ra5SSfo)
Visiting the 1950s hairdresser at Beamish Museum. Credit: Nigel Roddis
Celebrating community heritage can help people come together, feel pride in where they live and save stories and traditions.
Since 1994 we have awarded £460million to more than 24,100 community and cultural heritage projects across the UK.
What do we support?
We fund projects that are researching, conserving and celebrating the heritage of a community or place.
These projects could include lots of types of heritage, such as people celebrating living customs or improving a historic green space. What's most important is that the project involves and benefits the community.
Project ideas
Our funding could help people:
- research the impact of a historical event on their town, and share their findings through displays, talks and online
- investigate the names on a war memorial
- crowdsource documents and photographs linked to the LGBTQ+ community, creating an online archive and exhibition
- set up an audio trail around a range of buildings, parks and monuments in a town
- enable a youth group to research their local history and create an animated film about their learnings
For more inspiration, see the stories below or browse projects we've funded.
How to get funding
If you have an idea for a project, we would love to hear from you.
![Partners and pioneers – building back after the pandemic Matthew Mckeague, CEO of the Architectural Heritage Fund](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/Matthew%20Mckeague%20web.jpg.webp?itok=wGYcmxNM)
Blogs
Partners and pioneers – building back after the pandemic
Town centres are struggling – after the pandemic, innovative partnerships and investment in heritage can help them flourish again.
![Hope for Northern Ireland’s LGBT+ community, thanks to emergency funding Cara McCann](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/Cara-Here-NI.jpg.webp?itok=-8wWedxw)
Cara McCann. Credit: Pacemaker Press
Stories
Hope for Northern Ireland’s LGBT+ community, thanks to emergency funding
Northern Ireland's only organisation for lesbian and bisexual women keeps its doors open after National Lottery grant.
![Digital "lifeline" for Belfast's Clifton House Exterior view of Clifton House](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/Clifton-House-2019_for%20web.jpg.webp?itok=oePGV6bw)
News
Digital "lifeline" for Belfast's Clifton House
Despite its doors being closed, Clifton House in North Belfast can now welcome more visitors than ever before, thanks to a Heritage Emergency Fund grant.
![Professor Duncan Morrow](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/Duncan-Morrow-954-536.jpg.webp?itok=vmxRoco5)
Blogs
From "unsettlement" to a new future
There have been few more global events disruptive of the pattern of life than the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown. Yet the impacts of the pandemic – which are only just beginning to be understood – only amplify an already unsettled outlook. "Unsettledness" is becoming a way of life." People are on
![Engaging young people in heritage from home Arty photo of person with a camera](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/Ffotograffiaeth%20arbrofol%20ym%20Mwthyn%20Llan-non%2C%20Ceredigion.jpg.webp?itok=sf3pd7pB)
Experimental photography at Llannon Cottage, Ceredigion
Blogs
Engaging young people in heritage from home
I often hear it said that it is difficult to get young people involved in heritage. I do not believe this to be true, and we have had no difficulty in attracting young people to be part of the Royal Commission’s youth engagement project, Unloved Heritage?. This has been running for three years now
!["Huge" investment for Northern Ireland's heritage Binevenagh mountains](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/Bienevenagh.jpg.webp?itok=vXzanDcc)
The landscape of Binevenagh
News
"Huge" investment for Northern Ireland's heritage
Northern Ireland’s beautiful landscapes are to receive a boost as 11 heritage projects across the country are set to benefit from £5million National Lottery investment.
![Public to help solve mystery of 2000-year-old warrior Public to help solve mystery of 2000-year-old warrior](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/Bronze%20openwork%20crest%20which%20would%20have%20sat%20on%20top%20of%20helmet%2011.jpg.webp?itok=KdBhLiZh)
News
Public help solve mystery of 2000-year-old warrior
An Iron Age warrior found buried on a housing estate has gone on public display in Chichester thanks to National Lottery players.
![Inside a cathedral](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_large/public/media/imgs/landing-blocks/Durham-Cathedral-main-image_0.jpg.webp?itok=vPvPvLxB)
Programme
Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage – Emergency Resource Support
Part of the rescue package announced by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to safeguard cultural and heritage organisations across England from the economic impact of coronavirus (COVID-19).
![25 years: reviving the forgotten heritage of The Broads Venetian Waterways boating lake](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/gybc-venetian-waterways-main.jpg.webp?itok=Mo1Op20v)
Stories
25 years: reviving the forgotten heritage of The Broads
Great Yarmouth A stone’s throw from the heart of The Broads and its sprawling landscape in the East of England, is the seaside town of Great Yarmouth. As we hear more and more that our coastal towns are suffering from neglect, National Lottery funding over the last 25 years has aimed to buck the
![Eulogy - telling a Windrush generation's story Susan Pitter](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/sue-pitter.jpg.webp?itok=ljl2cwia)
Blogs
Eulogy - telling the stories of first generation Jamaicans
It was losing my father Hermerde in September 2017 and the funeral of one of his closest friends exactly a year later that inspired the Eulogy project.
![After Windrush - telling stories of struggle and celebration Milton Brown](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/milton-brown.png.webp?itok=nnzF8Hbd)
Stories
After Windrush - telling stories of struggle and celebration
Why did you want to make this film? I had the idea for about 25 years. I'm an African-Caribbean British Yorkshireman. I was born here, raised here. I saw my mother and father go through racism, I went through it at school. Then when I came out of the military, I couldn’t even get a job, people were
![Every voice matters - collecting black stories Nasir Adams](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/WNS_180419_St%20Fagans_Jamaica_Community_Film_78.jpg.webp?itok=mOlPihiV)
Blogs
Every voice matters - collecting black stories
A few months into his new role, Nasir Adam explains what he's doing to bring the museum together with black communities across Wales.