Heritage crafts at risk of disappearing within a generation are recorded, shared, and revived through a Farnham Craft Town project
Across the UK, traditional craft skills once central to daily life are quietly disappearing. Some now survive through only a small number of practitioners. A new project led by New Ashgate Gallery is working to record these skills, share them with new audiences, and support their continuation.
Surrey Craft Legacies focuses on heritage crafts identified in the Red List of Endangered Crafts, including silver spinning, marionette making, silk weaving, historic stained glass, and furniture making. These are skills shaped over generations, now under pressure from changing industry, training routes, and demand. Silk weaving, stained glass, and Marionette making are all endangered; Silver spinning is critically endangered in the UK.
The project unfolds across three connected strands, bringing together documentation, participation, and public presentation.
The first strand captures knowledge at risk of being lost. Leading makers are being filmed as they work, recording both technique and lived experience. These oral-history films document how skills are learned, sustained, and adapted over time. The films will be made freely available online through Surrey History Centre, creating a lasting public resource, and will be shared with local schools and craft enthusiasts alike.
The second strand opens these skills to new audiences. From March to October 2026, a programme of free workshops will take place across Farnham’s town centre events and community venues. Participants will be introduced to processes such as constructing marionettes, working with woven fibres, and understanding stained glass design. The workshops are delivered with Creative Response, DAiSY (Disability Arts Surrey), Hale Community Centre, Farnham Assist, and Farnham Library, with a focus on reducing barriers linked to cost, access, confidence, and transport.
The summer exhibition, Craft Legacies: Heritage and Endangered Skills, Living Traditions at the New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, presents work by both leading makers from across the UK who have shared their knowledge in Farnham, England’s World Craft Town, alongside films, photographs, and handmade objects created through community workshops. The exhibition traces how skills move from one generation to the next. It presents heritage crafts as living practices, shaped by those who continue to make, teach, and adapt them today. Each piece reflects a process of learning, repetition, and exchange, showing how knowledge is passed on through hands-on experience.
Dr Outi Remes, Director of New Ashgate Gallery, said: “These are highly skilled practices built over generations, yet some are now on the brink of disappearing. If they are not actively passed on, they will be lost. This project records that knowledge and makes it accessible, while giving new people the chance to learn directly from experienced makers.”
Rachel Mulligan, a leading stained-glass artist and Surrey Artist of the Year competition winner in 2014 at the New Ashgate, has been instrumental in the recognition of historic stained glass as an endangered craft: “Since I discovered stained glass more than thirty years ago, education opportunities have declined, and it has become significantly harder and more expensive to buy specialist materials. Sharing my skills and engaging with people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities helps to raise awareness of this beautiful art form.”
During his visit to Farnham World Craft Town, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh took part in a stained glass workshop, experiencing traditional craft skills first-hand.
Surrey Craft Legacies is led by New Ashgate Gallery, a charitable trust based in Farnham, Surrey. The project is funded by the Community Foundation for Surrey and made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. It is developed in partnership with Creative Response, DAiSY, Hale Community Centre, Farnham Assist, and Farnham Library, with the digital archive hosted by Surrey History Centre.