Cultures and memories
![Young people reading poetry around a microphone](/sites/default/files/styles/main_image_desktop/public/media/imgs/R2R%20on%20the%20road%20poetry%20copy.jpg.webp?itok=RJ-Eprwz)
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 which help to explore, save and celebrate the traditions, customs, skills and knowledge of different communities.
This cultural heritage is sometimes referred to as intangible or living heritage. This is because it is constantly changing and kept alive when practiced or performed.
We also fund projects which document and share people’s memories. This often involves capturing oral histories and ensuring they are accessible now and in the future.
Project ideas
Our funding could help people:
- research and share oral traditions, such as storytelling or local dialects
- train others in traditional skills and crafts, from dry stone walling and blacksmithing to basket weaving and textile making
- research the origins of culture, such as music, theatre or dance, and create performances influenced by past styles
- share the history and fun of celebrations, festivals or rituals with new audiences, from games and cooking to carnivals and fayres
- capture accounts of traditional knowledge or pass it on, such as woodland management or home remedies
- record the stories of ordinary people through oral histories, for example about growing up, migration or work
- retell people’s memories about a place or event, such as a long-stay hospital, the miners' strikes or the punk movement
How to get funding
If you have an idea for a project, we would love to hear from you.
Projects
365 Stories - charting boundaries of the Leeds story for disabled and marginalised people
365 Leeds stories uncovered and shared the hidden history of people with learning difficulties in Leeds by interviewing people who remembered Meanwood Hospital.
Projects
Gilsland Agricultural Show - 100 years of rural life in Hadrian's Wall country
Young and older people worked together to record the history of this 100-year-old agricultural show, which has traditional rural activities at its heart.
![Image icon showing simple outline of speech marks to represent oral histories](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/imgs/oral-history-1150_1.jpg.webp?itok=UFn2825Z)
Projects
Remedies Remembered
Slough Roots enabled women from English, Asian and West Indian backgrounds to research traditional healing remedies still used in the UK today.
![Our Day Out Visitors enjoy the opening of the exhibition](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/projects/exhibition_02_our_day_out_2.jpg.webp?itok=n_ZBeBIN)
Projects
Remembering 1960s New Brighton through the photography of Keith Medley
Our Our Day Out encouraged people to explore the Keith Medley photographic archive based at Liverpool John Moores University.
![Recipes From Me to You - Somali Cuisine A New Experience For All Granby Somali Women's Group at a meeting](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/projects/gswgwomen_1.jpg.webp?itok=nGMnLZ4g)
Projects
Recipes From Me to You - Somali Cuisine A New Experience For All
The Recipes From Me to You project captured previously unrecorded information about the culinary heritage of Somali families living in the Granby area of Liverpool.
![Galsworthy and Human Battles on the Home Front Visitors listening to the audio tour at the John Galsworthy exhibition](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/projects/oh-13-03635_rosegalsworthyopening30.jpg.webp?itok=rPMVsvsK)
Projects
Galsworthy and Human Battles on the Home Front
Volunteers helped to create an audio-visual exhibition exploring local historical figure John Galsworthy’s role in the First World War and his legacy in Kingston.
Projects
Bird in a Cage: The achievements of Lady Rhondda and the WSPU Newport
Pupils in Newport and Caerphilly researched the history of Lady Rhondda, celebrating her contribution to the suffragette movement and the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Newport.
Projects
Rossendale Footwear Heritage
The Rossendale Valley's fascinating but little known history of footwear manufacturing is now being shared for the first time with a wide and diverse audience.
![Are Ye Askin An older woman is interviewed by four children](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/projects/are_ye_askin_0.jpg.webp?itok=gMnu40LV)
Projects
Are Ye Askin
To mark the opening of the Beacon Arts Centre, Rig Arts celebrated the history of entertainment in Inverclyde throughout the 20th century.
Projects
Bread In Common
Bread in Common explored 2,000 years of Newcastle baking traditions, from wartime loaves made from potato to the arrival of new breads from Poland and the Middle East.
Projects
Race through the Generations
This multi-media, intergenerational storytelling project explored the racial heritage of Bristol and South Gloucestershire.
![The experiences of women workers in the manufacturing industries in Wales 1945-1975 Black-and-white photograph of women factory workers](/sites/default/files/styles/hlf_xlarge/public/media/projects/llun_1_meiryl_james_hufenfa_felin_fach_001_1.jpg.webp?itok=8OfbofR0)
Projects
The experiences of women workers in the manufacturing industries in Wales 1945-1975
The Women’s Archive of Wales recorded the experiences of women working in factories across the country after 1945, filling a gap in our social history.