Category: Industrial heritage

World of Glass Museum Saved from Closure Through Supporters’ Fundraising

World of Glass Museum Saved from Closure Through Supporters’ Fundraising

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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.”

For further details follow this link: https://www.worldofglass.com/

Museum of Glass, St Helens, showing The Hotties furnace. Image courtesy of Museum of Glass.

North West Industrial Heritage Network Meeting, 17 October

North West Industrial Heritage Network Meeting, 17 October

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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:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/north-west-industrial-heritage-network-tickets-1716173072859?aff=oddtdtcreator

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.

More details about the museum here: https://lancashireminingmuseum.org/

Grants for Two Mining Industrial Heritage Sites

Grants for Two Mining Industrial Heritage Sites

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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.
South East Industrial Heritage Network Meeting Now Booking for 3rd October

South East Industrial Heritage Network Meeting Now Booking for 3rd October

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The next in-person South East Industrial Heritage Network meeting will be held at the Amberley Museum, West Sussex, on the 3rd October, from 11am to 1pm. This will be followed, after lunch (there is a splendid cafe on site or 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.

The Amberley Museum is an open-air industrial heritage museum at Amberley, near Arundel in West Sussex. The museum was founded in 1978 and is owned and operated by Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre, a not-for-profit company and charity, with the support of an active Friends organsiation. The museum occupies a former chalk pit, and includes exhibits relating to quarrying, transport, metal working, and communications. For further details follow this link: https://www.amberleymuseum.co.uk/

To book a free place at the network meeting please follow this link:

Register on Eventbrite

All IHN members are very welcome to attend.

Amberley Museum entrance. Image copyright Dr Michael Nevell.

ERIH Members to Recieve Membership Benefit Boost

ERIH Members to Recieve Membership Benefit Boost

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The European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH) is to produce two digital issues of the German industrial heritage quarterly magazine “Industriekultur- Magazin für Denkmalpflege, Landschaft, Sozial-, Umwelt- und Technikgeschichte” in English exclusively for ERIH members.

ERIH has regularly featured anchor points and regional routes in a separate section of the magazine and reported on ERIH’s work. Thanks to increased co-operation with the publishers, and with funding from the European Union, the first issue of an English-language (digital) version of the journal is now available to members: “Industrial Culture 1/25. Monument Preservation, Landscape, Social History, Environmental History, History of Technology”.
 
This form of the journal will only be published digitally as a PDF, twice a year. It is not identical to the German-language journal, but contains a special selection of articles for the European audience, including one or two first publications. The e-paper is fully searchable and has active links. Whether this extra membership benefit will be extended beyond two issues, will depend in part on member feed back.

CBA Launches New Volunteer Opportunities Page

CBA Launches New Volunteer Opportunities Page

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The Council for Britsh Archaeology (CBA) has launched a new volunteering page, listing opportunities across the UK. You can search by your region to find volunteering callouts near you. However, the page doesn’t just listed opportunities for volunteers, but also has a section where groups, sites, and museums can list their own volunteering opportunities in archaeology and heritage.

Current industrial archaeology and heritage volunteer openings include opportunities to help Kingswood Heritage Museum (a brassworks) in South Glouscestershire, digitising opportunities with the Food Museum, and helping out with the North Tynside Steam Railway.

To learn more about new volunteer opportunities sign up for the CBA volunteering newesletter by following this link:

https://www.archaeologyuk.org/get-involved/volunteering.html

New ‘Spaces, Places and Belonging’ Community Hub Funding to Launch

New ‘Spaces, Places and Belonging’ Community Hub Funding to Launch

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The National Archives, in partnership with Leeds Museums & Galleries, The National Library of Wales, and the Community Archives & Heritage Group, is launching a new national grant progamme for libraries and museums called the ‘Spaces, Places and Belonging’ Community Hub.

Funded by the Arts & Humanites Research Council, the Community Hub will support inclusive, community-led, research across the UK’s galleries, libraries, archives, and museums and heritage sectors,so will be of interest to industrial heritage sites. There will be three grant schemes available, totalling £550,000 (click the blue links for more detail):

A programme of training, digital skills development, and network-building will run to support these grants. The Community Hub will also create a permanent digital platform to share resources, learning, and best practice.

Applications for Seed Corn Grants and Skills Bursaries open on the Monday 15 September 2025. There will be a launch webinar on Wednesday 17 September 2025 to take you through each grant scheme in detail, covering everything from eligibility, to assessment criteria, to budgets. There will also be a Q&A at the end to enable you to ask any extra questions you may have about this programme.

To book a place on the 17 September launch webinar follow this link to Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/spaces-places-and-belonging-community-hub-launch-webinar-tickets-1524899849499

Hundreds of Industrial Sites to Visit for Heritage Open Days 2025

Hundreds of Industrial Sites to Visit for Heritage Open Days 2025

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September is Heritage Open Days season in England, and hundreds of industrial heritage sites and activities are available for the 2025 event. Heritage Open Days is co-ordinated by the National Trust and for 2025 runs from 12 to 21 September.

As in previous years, several hundered industrial heritage sites will be opening their doors for free to the public, whilst dozens more events, from talks to walks will look at the stories of industrial archaeology, history, and the people involved across England. With the ‘Railway 200’ anniversay celebrations for the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825 culminating at the end of September, it seems appropriate that there are over a hundred railway-related sites and events available this year.

Other industrial heritage site types accessible, some only open for Heritage Open Days, include over 40 watermills and dozens of windmills, as well as ironworks, potteries, textile mills, canals, and transport museums. To explore England’s rich industrial legacy this September follow this link:

https://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/whats-on/search-2025-events.html?view=list&searchQuery=train&locationQuery=&distance=&startDate=&endDate=

The Heritage Open Days initiative is part of the wider European Heritage Open Days events running througout September 2025. Elsewhere in the UK these include the Welsh ‘Open Doors Days’, the Scottish ‘Doors Open Days’, and Northern Ireland’s ‘European Heritage Open Days’ events (13-14 September). Further details on these UK events can be found here: https://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/resource/european-heritage-days-2025-explore-more.html

8th International Early Railways Conference, September 2025

8th International Early Railways Conference, September 2025

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The 8th International (Hybrid) Early Railways Conference will run from Tuesday 23rd September 2025 to Friday 26th September. 2025 is the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, and the conference is designed to lead up to the ‘Railway 200’ celebration finale on the 27th September. The conference will be held in Darlington at the Central Hall, Dolphin Centre, Horse Market. Bookings can still be made online for delegates to participate in the conference, participating either in person or via the internet.

The conference will be similar in format to the previous successful International Early Railways Conferences, with topics ranging from the earliest waggonway systems through to the earliest main line and industrial systems around the world up to the 1870s.

The event is sponsored by the National Railway Museum, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Newcomen Society, the Railway & Canal Historical Society, and the Stephenson Locomotive Society. There will also be six poster presentations provided by the members of the Historical Metallurgy Society.

Booking details can be found here: https://rchs.org.uk/early-railways-conference-combined/

Dobbin’s painting of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in September 1825. Image courtesy Darlington Borough Council.
Association for Heritage Interpretation: September Interpretation Panels Webinar

Association for Heritage Interpretation: September Interpretation Panels Webinar

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The Association for Heritage Interpretation (AHI) is running a seminar on 17 September on interpretation p[anels. The seminar will look at how to make interpretation panels work for your site. This will be led by Bill Bevan, author of the AHI best-practice guideline about panels. Bill will introduce some key considerations when commissioning, locating, writing, and designing a panel, and take questions and discussions.

The AHI promote excellence in the practice and provision of interpretation and to gain wider recognition of interpretation as a professional activity. They believe that interpretation enriches our lives through engaging emotions, enhancing experiences, and deepening understanding of places, people, events, and objects from the past and present.

To book a place follow this link: https://ahi.org.uk/events/