A trainee millwright has been awarded a grant to help safeguard one of Sussex’s most endangered craft skills.
Heritage Crafts and the Sussex Heritage Trust (SHT) have awarded the grant through the Heritage Crafts’ Endangered Crafts Fund, which was launched in 2019 to increase the likelihood of endangered crafts surviving into the next generation.
Millwright Fred Maillardet and David Pierce will train 18-year-old volunteer miller Adam Winsor to be trainee millwright at Oldland Windmill in West Sussex and Wicken Windmill in Cambridgeshire.
Restoring and maintaining windmills in the UK is presently mainly carried out by an ageing workforce, made up of a few commercial millwrights and a significantly larger number of volunteers with wood and metal working skills and experience on restoring and maintaining mills.
The craft is critically endangered, partly due to a lack of younger people becoming involved. Training and encouraging individuals such as Adam is a valuable opportunity to pass on the endangered craft skills to the next generation.
In 2021 Heritage Crafts published the third edition of its groundbreaking Red List of Endangered Crafts, the first research of its kind to rank the UK’s traditional crafts by the likelihood that they will survive into the next generation. The report assessed 244 crafts to ascertain those which are at greatest risk of disappearing, of which four were classified as extinct, 74 as ‘endangered’ and a further 56 as ‘critically endangered’.
The successful project joins five previous Sussex recipients funded through the partnership between Heritage Crafts and SHT, including two flint wallers, a brick maker, a trug maker and a wallpaper maker. Nationally, 42 projects have been funded through the Endangered Crafts Fund since 2019.
Mary Lewis, Heritage Crafts Endangered Crafts Manager, said:
“For many reasons, not least the COVID-19 pandemic, our craft skills are at more risk than ever before. We are delighted to be working in partnership with the Sussex Heritage Trust to address the specific challenges to endangered skills and knowledge in Sussex, a region renowned for its craftsmanship and material heritage.”
Simon Knight DL, Chairman of the Sussex Heritage Trust, said:
“Excellent architecture and design, traditional building skills and craftmanship are an important part of the rich heritage of Sussex. This partnership with Heritage Crafts addresses the particular challenges of these crafts and facilitate the transfer of endangered crafts, building skills and knowledge to the next generation.”
For more information about the Endangered Crafts Fund, email Heritage Crafts Endangered Crafts Manager Mary Lewis at mary@heritagecrafts.org.uk or SHT General Manager, Helen Reeve at helen.reeve@sussexheritagetrust.org.uk.
Read the full press release
Millwrighting
A mixture of several crafts, but essentially building machines to harness wind, water and animal power to drive machinery.
| Status |
Critically endangered |
| Craft category |
Wood, metal |
| Historic area of significance |
UK
NB The millwrighting and associated milling crafts are similarly practiced across NW Europe. |
| Area currently practised |
Wherever the surviving mills tend to be – Mainly South Central to North East England for windmills, much of UK for watermills.
There is an urgent need for millwrights in the North of England & Scotland |
| Origin in the UK |
13th century |
| Current no. of professionals (main income) |
11 |
Current no. of professionals (sideline to main income)
|
3 |
| Current no. of trainees |
4 |
Current total no. serious amateur makers
|
Around 30 volunteers who can and do carry out considerable tasks
NB This includes a considerable number of millwrights and millers who have responsibility for their mills. |
Current total no. of leisure makers
|
|
| Minimum no. of craftspeople required |
20
Many wind and watermills require annual work and every 5-10 years major work to be carried out by a professional millwright |
History
Millwrighting started as soon as humans started to build machines, probably pre-Roman, but developed as the machines and materials did. The introduction of iron was the largest single development. Also the steady development of gear wheel construction was very significant, and the mechanical developments during the industrial revolution.
Techniques
Millwrights designed the whole mill. They build in timber, or later metal, make patterns, machine components, make gear teeth, build, repair and dress stones, make and design windmill sails, and make from scratch or repair any part of any mill, from tree or casting to component.
Regional differences are important and must be kept. There are variations throughout the country with the type of building, sails, & caps of windmills.
Sub-crafts
Issues affecting the viability of the craft
- Business issues: There are issues with skills, raw materials, recruitment, and business viability due to material costs, premises and set up costs.
- Business issues: Meeting Health and Safety requirements surrounding the work can be challenging and prohibitively expensive.
- Skills: The number of skilled millwrights are in decline. The work can be challenging and so recruitment and retention can be an issue.
- Market: The sector has limited funded with vulnerable buildings often being repaired and maintained by volunteers. Due to the lack of Millwrights there are a number of volunteer and Friends groups who carry out tasks. The volunteer millwrights are vital in that they cover for the lack of general funding for millwrighting, and at those mills where they have long term responsibility they provide important continuity, encouraging the improvement of millwrighting standards & of maintenance.
- Skills: Millwrighting is a composite of other professions including mechanical engineering/machinery, timber framing, built heritage conservation, watercourse management. food production etc. Very few millwrights today will have the full complement of skills due to the wide range of different mills to be managed.
- Sector support: There is no guild/union or recognised qualification
- Training and recruitment: There is no recognised qualification or standard for Millwrighting.
- Skills: A lack of knowledge of regional variations and techniques resulting in loss of heritage
- Ageing workforce: Some of the very experienced Millwrights are nearing retirement with very few entering the profession and the skills are not being passed on
Support organisations
Craftspeople currently known
Individuals:
- Adam Marriot, Teme Valley Heritage Engineers
- Richard Seago – working only in Norfolk
- Paul Kemp
- Paul Sellwood
- Tim Whiting
- Bill Griffiths
- Malcolm Cooper
- Neil Medcalf – now retired
- Derek & Simon Janes
- Paul Abel
- Ian Clarke, Winchester – works mainly on water mills
- Jon McGuiness
- Bertus Dijkstra (although living in The Netherlands he is prepared to work in the UK, and has repaired fully Upminster Mill, a major project)
Businesses:
- IJP Building Conservation
- Dorothea Restorations
- Traditional Millwrights Ltd
- Nicholls Hydro Engineering Ltd
Other groupings involving skilled millwrights:
- Wicken Millwrights (Dave Pearce et al). Current work confined to Wicken Mill, Gransden Mill, Foxton Mill
- High Salvington Windmill
- Oldland Windmill Trust made up of skilled volunteer millers and millwrights.
- Thelnetham Windmill/Pakenham Watermill (Suffolk Buildings Preservation Trust)
Training Providers
Whilst there are no specific degrees or qualifications in Millwrighting, there are specialised courses available at various levels including Higher National certificates and diplomas, Foundation Degrees and Masters (MSc) Degrees. The Building Crafts College offer a range of apprenticeships and vocational qualifications in heritage construction. Millwrights may be trained in Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, TImber Framing and other allied skills.
Masters Degree courses are available throughout the UK. For example, The University of Bath offers a Conservation of Historic Buildings Msc. For direct entry you’ll need to have already achieved a degree in a relevant subject or have completed a foundation degree.
There is a list of accredited courses available via the Institute for Historic Buildings Conservation website.
Apprenticeships – There are no apprenticeships specifically in Millwrighting. A Level 5 Apprenticeship ‘Heritage Construction Specialist’ is currently being developed by the Historic Environment Trailblazer group.
On the job training: Millwrighting companies will usually take on a train their own employees. There is some support available to take on and train new entrants.
- SPAB Mills Section has funded the SPAB Fellowship for a years’ training of a potential millwright. (2021, 2022 and possibly 2023)
- Hamish Ogston Foundation / Historic England are supporting some millwright trainees in 2022
Other Provision: Wicken Mill is providing on-going informal training to new volunteer millwrights. In 2022 – 2023 Oldland and Wicken Mills are providing ‘on the job’ training for a young volunteer millwright, Adam Winsor. This is with the support of HCA and Sussex Heritage Trust.
Further information on training and education:
SPAB suggest that at least 20 millwrights need to be trained over the next 5 to 10 years as this is an intense apprenticeship which would take several years to learn all the various skills. Ideally 3 or 4 a year for the foreseeable future would cover this, allowing for some to drop out.
In England there is some provision for funding of major wind and water mill restorations – with central funds from Historic England or, for very big schemes, Lottery funds. However, there is little realistic provision for funding the on-going maintenance of mills in the UK between major overhauls.
Many mills rely on skilled volunteer millwrights, often professional engineers and the like, to carry out major repair and also running repairs. Wicken Windmill was restored from a ruinous state in this way. Volunteer millwrights and millers continue the maintenance of the mill, with materials funded by sales of flour and donations.
There is an agreed need for on-going support and encouragement of the endangered craft of the professional millwright. The shortage of available funds for mill repairs in general means we must also encourage and support the equally endangered craft of the skilled volunteer miller, so that at least some funds can be earned for heritage mills by the sale of flour. The shortage of funds for mills in general gives added urgency to these needs.
References
- Watts, Martin, ‘Millwrighting’ in Crafts in the English Countryside.
- Wailes, The English Windmill
- Farries, Essex millers and millwrights, volume 2
- Freese, Stanley, Mills and Millwrighting – goes into great detail of how to build a windmill, particularly a wooden post mill, giving the types of materials and tools also the methods that should be used.
Deadline: 1 December 2019
Millwrighting has been identified by the HCA Red List of Endangered Crafts as a critically endangered skill, and the Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) recognises the urgent need both to train new millwrights, and to encourage and equip experienced craftspeople to work on mills.
Therefore, SPAB is inviting applications for one place on its Craft Fellowship scheme from a craftsperson in any relevant trade who has an interest in mills, and in using and extending their skills to repair and maintain them.
The scheme will follow the existing format of the Craft Fellowship scheme, comprising learning and placements across the country. This is not a complete millwright training programme or apprenticeship, but a way for an experienced craftsperson to acquire specific additional skills to enable them to work on mills. Training extends over a period of nine months and is offered with a bursary to help cover travel and other costs.
https://www.spab.org.uk/learning/fellowship
New research by the Heritage Crafts Association has unearthed dozens more traditional craft skills on the verge of extinction in the UK, in the first major update of its pioneering project, the Red List of Endangered Crafts.
Zoe Collis, apprentice paper maker at Two Rivers Paper (photo by Alison Jane Hoare)
Sixteen new crafts have been added to the ‘critically endangered’ category of the Red List, meaning that they are at serious risk of dying out in the next generation, including withy crab pot making, millwrighting and commercial handmade paper making. They join 20 other critically endangered crafts, including five (bell founding, flute making, scissor making, tinsmithing and watch making) that have been reclassified as being at a higher level of risk than when the research was first published in 2017.
Critically endangered crafts include those with very few practitioners, few (if any) trainees and a lack of viable training routes by which the skills can be passed on. Often they serve very niche markets, and craftspeople cannot afford to step away from production to train their successors for fear those markets will disappear.
It’s not all bad news, however, as the craft of sieve and riddle making, which was listed as extinct in 2017, has now been revived by two new makers devoted to bringing it back, both of whom are now beginning commercial production. In addition, the organisation behind the research, the Heritage Crafts Association, has, with funding from The Dulverton Trust, employed an Endangered Crafts Officer to look for practical ways to safeguard these crafts skills, and has set up an Endangered Crafts Fund to provide the means to do so.
Daniel Carpenter, who led the research on behalf of the Heritage Crafts Association, said:
“The Red List of Endangered Crafts is vital in drawing our attention to parts of our shared cultural heritage we are at greatest risk of losing. What we as a society decide to do with that knowledge is up to us, but at the Heritage Crafts Association we believe that the country’s skills and practices can be just as valuable as its historic artefacts and monuments… perhaps even more so as they may offer opportunities for future generations to create their own sustainable and fulfilling livelihoods in ways we cannot yet imagine. If we allow these crafts to disappear then we seriously diminish these opportunities.”
Whilst the UK has been a world-leader in the preservation of tangible heritage (museum collections, buildings and monuments), it has fallen behind the rest of the world when it comes to the safeguarding of intangible heritage (knowledge, skills and practices). It is among only 15 of 193 UNESCO members that has not yet ratified the 2003 Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage, and government responsibility for heritage crafts falls in the gap between agencies set up to support arts and heritage.
Julie Crawshaw, Director of the Heritage Crafts Association, said:
“In an age of hyper-digitisation these skills can offer a viable alternative workplace and a lifestyle that can bring a sense of accomplishment and increased wellbeing. As examples of tacit knowledge that cannot easily be passed on in written form; they survive only through practice and the transmission of skill from one person to another. The Heritage Crafts Association, which is celebrating its tenth year in 2019, is dedicated to safeguarding heritage crafts skills for the benefit of everyone.”
All 212 entries featured in the Red List of Endangered Crafts 2019 edition are available to view online at http://redlist.heritagecrafts.org.uk.
About the HCA Red List of Endangered Crafts
Steve Overthrow, sieve and riddle maker (photo by Daniel Carpenter)
The 2019 edition of the HCA Red List of Endangered Crafts was led by Daniel Carpenter, on secondment from his doctoral research on craft heritage at the University of Exeter, and supported by the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership. The project runs alongside the work of the Heritage Crafts Association’s Endangered Crafts Officer Mary Lewis, whose post, funded by The Dulverton Trust, has been created to identify and develop interventions to improve the prospects of such crafts.
For the 2019 edition, 212 crafts have been assessed to identify those which are at greatest risk of disappearing. Of the 212 crafts featured in the research, four have been classified as extinct, 36 as critically endangered, 70 as endangered and 102 as currently viable.
Drawing on information such as the current number of craftspeople and trainees, the average age of practitioners, opportunities to learn, and other issues affecting the future of the crafts considered, the research assesses how likely it is that the craft skills will be passed on to the next generation. From armour making and arrowsmithing to wig making and woodturning, each has been assigned to one of four categories: extinct, critically endangered, endangered or currently viable.
Four crafts are known to have become extinct in the UK in the last ten years (cricket ball making, gold beating, lacrosse stick making, and paper mould and deckle making) with one more (sieve and riddle making) brought back from extinction. At the other end of the spectrum, viable crafts are defined as those for which there are sufficient craftspeople to pass on the craft skills to the next generation, though crafts in the currently viable category face real challenges and require continued monitoring.
For the purposes of this research, a heritage craft is defined as “a practice which employs manual dexterity and skill and an understanding of traditional materials, design and techniques, and which has been practised for two or more successive generations.” The research focuses on craft practices which are taking place in the UK today, including crafts which have originated elsewhere.
The 2017 Red List of Endangered Crafts, funded by The Radcliffe Trust and led by Greta Bertram, was the first to rank traditional crafts by the likelihood they would survive the next generation. It brought the plight of these skills to national attention, with coverage across national newspapers and broadcast media including Countryfile, The One Show and Radio 4 Woman’s Hour.
http://redlist.heritagecrafts.org.uk
About the Endangered Crafts Fund
The Heritage Crafts Association’s Endangered Crafts Fund has been set up to ensure that the most at-risk heritage crafts within the UK are given the support they need to thrive. The Fund will be used to support makers and trainees who wish to develop or share their skills in the crafts that have been identified as being most at risk.
Anyone wishing to donate to the fund may do so securely online via the web link below. Alternatively, please send a cheque made payable to ‘Heritage Crafts Association’ with an accompanying note specifying ‘Endangered Crafts Fund’ to: Heritage Crafts Association, 27 South Road, Oundle, Peterborough PE8 4BU.
www.heritagecrafts.org.uk/ecf
Categories of risk
Drawing on the conservation status system used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust Watchlist, the HCA uses a system of four categories of risk to assess the viability of heritage crafts. A heritage craft is considered to be viable if there are sufficient craftspeople to transmit the craft skills to the next generation.
Shortcut to categories: Extinct | Critically Endangered | Endangered |
Not on the Red List: Currently viable
Extinct in the UK
Crafts classified as ‘extirpated’ or ‘locally extinct’ are those which are no longer practised in the UK. For the purposes of this research, this category only includes crafts which have become extinct in the past generation.
Critically endangered
Crafts classified as ‘critically endangered’ are those at serious risk of no longer being practised in the UK. They may include crafts with a shrinking base of craftspeople, crafts with limited training opportunities, crafts with low financial viability, or crafts where there is no mechanism to pass on the skills and knowledge.
Endangered
Crafts classified as ‘endangered’ are those which currently have sufficient craftspeople to transmit the craft skills to the next generation, but for which there are serious concerns about their ongoing viability. This may include crafts with a shrinking market share, an ageing demographic or crafts with a declining number of practitioners.
Currently viable
Crafts classified as ‘currently viable’ are those which are in a healthy state and have sufficient craftspeople to transmit the craft skills to the next generation. They may include crafts with a large market share, widely popular crafts, or crafts with a strong local presence. NB. A classification of ‘currently viable’ does not mean that the craft is risk-free or without issues affecting its future sustainability/viability.
Click here to see the list of currently viable crafts
