How Your Support Helps Us
Here are just a few examples of what we have been able to achieve thanks to the generous support of our donors and partners.
The Heritage Building Skills Programme
To help address long-term and severe heritage skills shortages in the construction sector, a Heritage Building Skills Programme was developed to pioneer a new training model. This includes a three-tiered training scheme for craftspeople to gain direct experience at critical points in their careers, as well as on-site training with expert teams at some of the country’s most valuable historic buildings and places, identified by Historic England as 'at risk' and in need of rescue.
Editor’s note: this programme was called The Hamish Ogston Foundation Heritage Building Skills Programme until October 2023.
Historic Environment Advice Assistant (HEAA) apprenticeships supported by Benefact Trust
In September 2019, Historic England launched a two-year heritage apprenticeship programme, with funding from Benefact Trust (formerly Allchurches Trust) based around the Historic Environment Advice Assistant (HEAA) apprenticeship standard.
This brand-new higher-level apprenticeship programme develops the knowledge and capabilities of the next generation of heritage workers, to help protect and secure the nation’s historic environment for years to come.
Benefact Trust's funding enabled six apprentices to be funded, trailblazing this much-needed and accessible new standard which has now been widely taken up across the heritage sector.
Topical Press Agency Medical Collection supported by the Wellcome Trust
A fascinating collection of more than 4,000 photographs uncovered in the Historic England Archive is now accessible to the public after more than 70 years, thanks to grant funding from the Wellcome Trust.
The photographs were taken by the Topical Press Agency and capture hospital staff, patients, procedures and practices. The images provide an invaluable and extraordinary insight into medical and nursing practices during the Second World War, and immediately before the foundation of the National Health Service.
The Wellcome Trust’s support enabled the digitisation of the images and a fascinating outreach project to take place with school groups across the country.
1950s sculpture ‘The Sunbathers’ – a public campaign
A remarkable piece of lost public art from the 1950s, Peter Laszlo Peri's Festival of Britain sculpture ‘The Sunbathers’, is now on public display at London Waterloo station.
The support of multiple donors enabled the sculpture, thought to be lost forever, to be restored and returned to public view following a successful crowdfunding campaign by Historic England.
