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 Small Grants Scheme is provided by the Foyle Foundation to support smaller, grass-roots, and local charities in the UK with projects that have the potential to make a significant difference to their work. In the last three years recipients have included the Science Museum, the Mills Archive Trust, the Hull Maritime Foundation, and the Black Country Living Museum.
The Foyle Foundation was formed to implement the will of the late Christina Foyle. She was the daughter of William Foyle who, with his brother, founded the former family owned bookshop Foyles in Charing Cross Road, London. The Foyle Foundation will complete its grant giving programme in 2025, marking 25 years of giving to the fields of the Arts, Learning, Community Small Grants, State Schools Libraries and formerly Health. The Foundation awards funding in two main areas:
AIM (the Association of Independent Museums) has announced (December 2024) the latest recipients of their collections care and conservation grants, funded by the Pilgrim Trust. 20 organisations were offered grant funding totalling £63,750.50.
The Peak District Mining Museum has been offered funding for a conservator-led collections care audit to provide a report on the display and store environment and offer recommendations on how to improve collections care.
The Museum of Rail Travel/ Vintage Carriages Trust has been awarded £3,000.00 for conserving and making publicly accessible the Bradshaw map, whilst the Port Sunlight Village Trust has been awarded a grant of £7,325 for theConservation of the Gladstone Theatre Plaque.
In 2025 AIM will be offering a new grant called ‘Museum Fundamentals’, combining the familiar conservator support offered by the Pilgrim Trust funded grants, with new funding to support back of house activity and mentoring for larger projects. To hear about the forthcoming AIM Museum Fundamentals grant application process, and news on all other AIM activity, sign up for their newsletter here: weekly eNews.
Applications are now open for the Association for Industrial Archaeology’s 2025 round of restoration, research, and other awards (including community, dissertaton, publication, and travel bursary). The deadline for most of these awards is the 31st Janaury 2025, although the deadline for the Restoration Grants is the 31st March 2025. Details and links can be found below.
Restoration Grants
The first of these grants were made in 2009, and from the initial modest beginnings we have, by 2024, been able to allocate nearly £1,500,000 since the scheme began. The industrial heritage sector, despite difficulties with volunteer projects during the Pandemic, has continued to be increasingly appreciative of this source of aid. A source which is entirely thanks to the continuing support of our anonymous donors. A brief history of the scheme and details of many of those projects can be found below. Regular updates on progress with these projects appear in I A News, our quarterly bulletin. From 2020 onwards the available Grants pot is divided into two categories:
Major projects where the maximum grant that can be awarded is £30,000. The grant from the AIA must be a significant part of the total project cost, not just a small contribution to a very large project, so that the AIA grant has real impact. The AIA would not normally fund projects where their grant represents less than 20% of the total project costs. Small projects where the grant limit is £10,000, for which the total cost of the project, excluding the value of volunteer labour, must not exceed £12,500.
The AIA research grant scheme underpins the study aim of the Association. It does that by:
Encouraging individual researchers to study industrial archaeology subjects
Encouraging the development of industrial archaeology skills within commercial units, the main repository of professional skills in the subject
Supporting local industrial archaeology and industrial heritage societies in exploring and understanding their local areas
Helping to develop the next generation of industrial archaeologists
The total fund available in any single year is £1,500 and multiple grants may be given up to this maximum in a single year. The AIA may consider part-funding a wider grant application or project as long as the AIA grant is a significant part of the larger application / project.
Click to download full details and an application form: (.pdf)(.docx)
In 2024 Claymills Pumping Station received a major grant for the restoration of boiler No 1 to fully working condition. Image courtesy of Claymills Pumping Station Trust.
The Catalyst Science Discovery Centre and Museum in Widnes has been awarded a £1 million grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. This is to help it educate and excite an even wider audience about the relevance of chemistry, the town’s chemical heritage, and how this has shaped modern life today.
Delegates catching up at the North West IHN, October 2024. Copyright: Dr Michael Nevell
Half of the £1,009,930 National Lottery Heritage Fund grant will be used to refurbish two floors of the museum in order to showcase the history and heritage of the chemical industry from the 1800s to the present in a fresher, more engaging, and more accessible way. This includes the top floor Observation Gallery with its 360° views of the surrounding area including the River Mersey and two Halton bridges, which will be revamped with brand new interactive exhibitsd and audio handsets.
A proportion of the grant will be used to digitise the museum’s nationally important, and extensive, archive to both protect and make it more widely available. The remainder of the grant has been earmarked for an extensive activity plan including workshops, events, open days, and resources aimed at connecting audiences to the chemical industry in a new and meaningful way.
The Catalyst charity was launched in 1987. It celebrates the local chemical industry heritage and its influence at home and around the world with unique initiatives, hands-on experiences, and rich industrial heritage archives. The Discovery Centre and Museum welcomes visitors from the local area and beyond, with special events for schools, families, and SEN groups all year round. The museum hosted the North West Industrial Heritage Network meeting in October 2024.
MD North has three grant schemes available for museums. The Open Grant programme is now open until 7 June. The grant is available to the following types of museums: museums in the north of England which are Accredited, hold provisional status, or are formally Working Towards Accreditation; museums that are not Accredited, or not formally Working Towards it, can be part of a project involving a partnership of museums, but an Accredited museum must be the lead partner.
Museum are invited to apply for grants of up to £5,000 for projects that help your organisation meet or go beyond the requirements of the Accreditation Standard and deliver against the Arts Council England’s Investment Principles:
Ambition and Quality
Dynamism
Environmental Responsibility
Inclusivity & Relevance
For details on how to apply for this grant and for other MD North grants follow this link: Open Grant
Crofton Beam Engines has secured a grant of £6,120 from the Association of Independent Museums under its ‘New Stories New Audiences’ programme funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund for their ‘Crofton for Kids’ project. The grant will fund the development and production of a class set of working models of the pumping station, buildable by children and designed by volunteers.
Visiting groups of children will visit the station to learn how it works. They will be helped to build the models and will then work in small groups to create short videos about the station. These videos will be made accessible to visitors to the station through the use of QR codes, taking advantage of the intranet installed around the site.
Whitney Cawley, the Learning and Community Engagement Officer at Crofton Beam Engines said: “This is an exciting opportunity to develop our activities with children. We have already signed up three local schools to work with us, and are talking to others. We will then be able to use the models created as part of the project in our existing learning sessions and incorporate them into a more regular family workshop which we hope to offer throughout the year”. Graham Snook, a Trustee and Chairman of the Crofton Branch, said: “This grant recognises the value of the work we are doing at Crofton to develop our learning and engagement programme. We are grateful to the Association of Independent Museums for their continuing support to small museums such as Crofton Beam Engines.”
The New Stories New Audiences programme is designed to support small museums to stay relevant to their audiences and to increase their impact by identifying new stories and by working with a new partner, to work differently and to try something new.
Crofton Beam Engines is owned by the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust, a registered charity. It is managed by the Crofton Branch of the Trust. For more information follow this link: https://www.croftonbeamengines.org/
Historic England’s Everyday Heritage Grant programme aims to shine a light on the diversity of heritage and is part of Historic England’s commitment to ensuring that a wider range of people are able to connect with, enjoy and benefit from the historic environment. Building on the success of Historic England’s first round of Everyday Heritage Grants in 2022, they are funding an additional 56 projects that celebrate working class histories and the historic places that make up everyday life.
The grants are for creative projects that focus on heritage connecting people to historic places, specifically those people and places that are overlooked or underrepresented. The community-led projects will explore the diverse stories of people and places, such as homelessness in Waterloo, a pen factory in Newhaven, and roller-skating in Birmingham. The total amount of funding awarded by Historic England is £875,000, ranging from £6,800 to £25,000 per individual project.
Arts Council England have announced the next stage of funding from the Cultural Development Fund. This is part of the wider Cultural Investment Fund which is funded by the Department for Media, Culture, and Sport and delivered by Arts Council England. In the past three rounds several industrial heritage sites and museums have been successful in applications, such as Elsecar Heritage Centre in Barnsley.
Stage Four has a total of £15.2 million on offer, with grants ranging between £2 million and £5 million. In order to be eligible for Round Four, you must be either a local partnership led by a local authority, a Local Enterprise Partnership, or another appropriate body. The Cultural Development Fund aims to ‘unlock local growth, productivity and regenerate communities through capital investment in culture’. This money will act as a ‘boost’ for cultural venues across the country and improve access to culture. The Arts Council encourages applications from ‘Places that have a strategic vision for their development and can demonstrate both cultural maturity and commitment to culture-led growth but need investment in physical and/or digital infrastructure or other assets to accelerate and maximise their impact.’
The window for expression of interest for these grants opened on Monday 5th February 2024. The deadline for expressions of interest closes at 12pm on Friday 15th March 2024. Thereafter, applications open on Monday 8th April 2024, and the final deadline for submission will be at 12pm Friday 17th May 2024. To view the full announcement and to check your eligibility visit the Arts Council England website.
AIM (Association of Independent Museums) has a range of grants available for collections care and conservation for their members. AIM members care for a huge and significant range of historic objects and collections. They range from fine art collections to locomotives, textiles to ships, decorative art and social and industrial history collections.
Grants for Collection Care Audits are run in partnership with Icon and enable small museums to undertake a basic 3-day collections care audit by a fully accredited conservator. The Collections Care Scheme provides grants for museums to receive specialist advice, purchase equipment, and train staff and volunteers. The Remedial Conservation Scheme provides grants for the conservation of objects from the museum’s permanent collection. Grants are £1,100 plus travel and VAT (if applicable) to cover the cost of a fully accredited conservator undertaking a three-day audit. These grants are a good starting point before making an application to the Collections Care or Remedial Conservation schemes if your museum has not previously had a professional conservation advice.
To be eligible for a collections care audit, your museum should:
Be an AIM member.
Be an Accredited Museum or awarded ‘Working Towards’ status.
Be a registered charity. An associated charity can receive the grant on the museum’s behalf if the museum itself is not a charity.
Have fewer than 20,000 visitors p.a. Please base your visitor figures on the visitors you have in an average year pre-2020 not those affected by Coronavirus and restrictions.
Application to this scheme does not prevent museums applying to the Pilgrim Trust for other, unrelated projects.
Men working at a Stoke-on-Trent bottle kiln, 1965-68. Copyright Historic England.
Historic England’s new ‘Everyday Heritage Grants: Celebrating Working Class Histories’ will fund community-led and people-focused projects that aim to further the nation’s collective understanding of the past. These pilot grants will focus on heritage that links people to overlooked historic places, with a particular interest in recognising and celebrating working class histories.
From palaces to terraced houses, stately homes to barns, our towns and landscapes are filled with symbols of our past. But not everyone’s stories are told and not everyone’s history is remembered. The Everyday Heritage Grants Scheme aims to engage with the widest possible range of heritage and helps to further the nation’s collective understanding of England’s past. Historic England are inviting applications from community or heritage organisations/museums to apply for grants up to £25,000 to fund projects that will celebrate the built or historic environment near them.
Each project should enable people to creatively share overlooked or untold stories of the places where they live andencourage communities, groups and local people to examine and tell their own stories in their own ways.
Historic England is also looking for projects that provide innovative volunteering opportunities for young people or people facing loneliness or isolation, as well as contribute positively to participants’ wellbeing.
As a result of these funded projects, heritage and stories that have been previously overlooked will be recognised and revealed, with buildings or historic sites acting as the inspiration. People will be able to tell their own stories, in their own way, and be encouraged to connect with others in their local communities.
Industrial Heritage Networks 