Welcome to the Industrial Heritage Networks and Support website. This site is maintained and updated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust who run the project and the networks. We aim to support industrial heritage in England through networking, information exchange, guidance, and training. Please explore the website and please contribute! For more information you can … Read more Welcome to the IHNs website!
The next in-person South West Industrial Heritage Network meeting will be held at Crofton Beam Engines on Friday 7th November, from 11am to 1pm. This will be followed, after lunch (please bring your own), by a tour of the site (2pm to 3pm). The themes for the 2025-26 IHN meetings are conservation and maintenance.
All IHN members and friends are very welcome to attend. To book a free place follow this link:
Crofton Beam Engines was built in 1807-9 to supply water to the highest point of the Kennet & Avon Canal which links London and Bristol. It is a rare survivor of the technology which enabled British engineers to drain mines and supply towns and cities with water throughout the world. For more details about the site follow this link: https://www.croftonbeamengines.org/about/
The next in-person Cornwall & Devon Industrial Heritage Network meeting will be held at Coldharbour Mill, Devon, on Thursday 6th November from 11am to 1pm. This will be followed, after lunch (there is a cafe on site), by a tour of the site (2pm to 3pm). The themes for the 2025-26 IHN meetings are conservation and maintenance.
All IHN members and friends are very welcome to attend. Follow the link below to book a free place.
Coldharbour Mill is a 200-year-old spinning mill in Uffculme, Devon. It was built by Thomas Fox to spin woollen and later worsted yarns in 1799. It opened as a museum in 1982, and has continued to produce high quality worsted knitting yarn on its period machinery. For more details about the mill follow this link: https://www.coldharbourmill.org.uk/
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has released a new report that compiles evidence on the budgetary pressures facing England’s heritage sector, using a regional case study approach focussing on local and combined authority funding in West Yorkshire. The findings will be familiar to many industrial heritage sites.
The report outlines how over a decade of local authority funding cuts, alongside the loss of EU funding and the continuing effects of the pandemic, have placed significant pressure on small to medium-sized heritage organisations. While some have adapted through asset transfers, income diversification, and new governance models, others, particularly organisations in deprived regional areas, reliant on volunteers, or working with rural or intangible heritage, face an increasingly uncertain future.
The findings show, that since 2010 there has been a notable decline in local authority support for heritage, the limited long-term impact of project-based grants for smaller organisations, the essential role of support networks, and the close relationship between place and heritage. Thus, Local Authorities, the main providers of heritage services in their areas, have seen real-term cuts of up to 49% in central government grants since 2010, alongside a 35% fall in cultural service spending, and a 36% per capita reduction in planning, environmental, and cultural expenditure.
At the same time, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) reported real-term reductions of up to 24% durign the years 2011–2015. These cuts have led to closures, reduced opening hours, and the scaling back of public programmes, particularly in more deprived areas.
The impacts reported differ significantly by location and heritage type. Urban and asset-based heritage were found to often attract regeneration-linked investment, while rural and intangible heritage remain underserved and under-researched. The report also noted that there is evidence to show that funding cuts risk diminishing social cohesion and wellbeing, especially where heritage spaces serve critical civic and educational roles.
Seventy-five civic museums across England will share £20m through the UK Government’s Museum Renewal Fund. The monies will be distributed Arts Council England. The funding forms part of the £270 million ‘Arts Everywhere Fund’ launched in February 2025. The funding will be used by museums to support work towards stabilising their financial situation and building towards sustainable and thriving futures. It must be spent by the end of January 2026.
Local authority and other civic musuems services with industrial sites receiving more than £5 million in funding include:
Northern Mine Research Society is experimenting with a series of online lectures this autumn/winter. The first of these will take place on Tuesday 7th October at 7pm. This initial lecture will be given by Steve Grudgings on ‘From Calley to Curr: the development of the Newocmen Engine in the eighteenth century’.
Join Steve to hear how the Newcomen engine developed from a bespoke, artisan-built, item to a “commodity” product built from standardised components. Steve will highlight the key challenges early engine builders had to overcome and how their endeavours contributed to the recognition of the engineering profession.
Non-members are very welcome. For joining instructions contact NMRS President Len Morris at: lmorris768@btinternet.com
Walsall Council has announced that Walsall Leather Museum will close next year (2026), despite a stay of execution earlier this year. The Council met on Wednesday, September 24, to approve plans for purchasing a new town centre building for the museum and to sell off the existing museum building, it self a former leather works in Littleton Street West, to the nearby Walsall College.
In February a petition against any sale, closure, or relocation of the Museum attracted 6,491 signatures and hundreds of people attended a demonstration and march at the time to oppose the closure. The Council cabinet announced on February 12 that Walsall Leather Museum would remain open in its current location to allow them to meet with stakeholders, deferring any decision until 2026. However, this new decision means that the museum will close without any new premsies being identified and without a long term plan for the contents of the museum.
Further details here: ttps://www.expressandstar.com/entertainment/attractions/2025/09/25/youre-destroying-the-cultural-heritage-of-walsall-by-moving-the-leather-museum-says-mp/
Walsdall Leather Museum. Image courtesy of Walsall Letaher Museum.
Conservation and restoration work at three windmills has been finished ahead of the winter. Heage Windmill in Derbyshire, Meopham Windmill in Kent, and the White Mill, also in Kent, have been undergoing programnmes of conservation and restoration work for several years.
Heage Windmill was restored in 2002, but the Grade II* listed building required further work due to weather-related erosion to the exterior stonework and increased damp inside the building. Following consultation with Historic England, the Heage Windmill Society secured £30,000 in funding from the Association for Industrial Archaeology (AIA) and the Headley Trust for the works to go ahead. Work on the sails and caps was carried out in 2023, and now repair work on the stone tower has been completed.
Grade II* listed Meopham Windmill, which was built around 1820, had fallen into disrepair. Kent County Council purchased the mill, known for its rare six-sided design, in 1959. A £300,000 restoration programme has seen it reconstructed with new mechanisms, revitalised grounds, and its sweeps restored. The funding for the restoration came from a collaboration between KCC, Meopham Windmill Trust, Suffolk Millwrights, and the local community.
Finally, the Grade II listed White Mill in Sandwich, Kent, had its four sails restored and reinstated in September. The windmill was built in 1760 and served the community as a working mill until the 20th Century, before it became disused in 1957. The White Mill Rural Heritage Centre said the landmark was partly restored in the 1960s, but over the past five years it had undergone more extensive works, and that repairing the historic industrial machinery was a “major testament to the power of volunteering and the important role it plays in the community”.
Further details on these restoration projects can be found on these links:
The World of Glass Museum in St Helens has been saved from closure, ahead of its 25th anniversary year in 2026. The museum was facing a combination of increasing competition for funding across the charity sector, and a steep rise in annual running costs which threatened its immediate future (see blog 2nd July). In response the museum launched an emergency funding appeal.
The Museum reported that a crowdfunding appeal had raised £27,000, and in addition they had received generous support from local firms, grant funders, and community fundraisers. This has brought the total of funds raised to £87,000. Sarah Taylor, World of Glass chief executive, said: “This support has been so inspiring….We’re breathing a huge sigh of relief. Thanks to this funding, we can plan for the future with confidence. We are proud to be a free museum, committed to sharing art, history, and culture with everyone — regardless of background or income.”
The next in-person North West Industrial Heritage Network meeting will be held at the Lancashire Mining Museum, Astley, Wigan, on the 17th October, from 11am to 1pm. This will be followed, after lunch (please bring your own), by a tour of the site (2pm to 3pm). The themes for the 2025-26 IHN meetings are conservation and maintenance.
All IHN members are very welcome to attend. To book a place follow this link:
The Lancashire Mining Musuem, which is entirely voluntary run, has origins going back to the 1970s, and first opened to the public in 1982, re-using buildings from the former Astley Pit, which closed in 1970. The museum has the last surviving headgear and winding house in the whole Lancashire coalfield. Apart from the steam winding engine and headgear, the museum also houses many exhibits, not least of which is the collection of 28 colliery locomotives, the largest collection of its type in the United Kingdom.
Two mining industrial heriatge sites have recently received grants towards conservation and community engagement.
The headstocks at Woodhorn Museum, Ashington, has received extra money from Northumbrian County Council for the continuing conservation work at the industrial site. The £1.4m grant is in addition to earlier funds for the restoration of the site, including nearly £1m from the UK Government’s ‘Heritage at Risk’ support scheme. Further details can be found here: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/additional-14-million-agreed-save-32416167
The National Coal Mining Museum for England, Wakefield, has received a grant in the first round of the re-imagined Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund. £98,561 will be used to celebrate the role of Miners’ Welfare by bringing together heritage, community, health, academic partners, and people living with marginalisation, mental and physical ill-health. This fund supports projects using museum collections to improve inclusion and equitable working with community partners. Further details can be found here: https://www.ncm.org.uk/news/funding-miners-welfare/
The headstocks at Woodhorn Museum. Image courtesy of North East Museums Development Trust.
Industrial Heritage Networks 