The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and Heritage Innovation are undertaking a survey of the c.600 publicly accessible and protected industrial heritage sites in England. Funded by Historic England, the 2024 survey is gathering data on these sites which will be compared with similar reports undertaken in 2008 and 1998, and will inform Historic England’s draft Industrial Heritage Strategy and future strategy for the Industrial Heritage Support Officer (IHSO). Stage 1 of the Industrial Heritage Sites in England Survey 2024 the online survey, has been been completed. Stage 2, targetted interviews with selected sites, is now underway.
The survey is being undertaken by Heritage Innovation, who ran the online survey was in April and May. Some of the initial findings gathered by Heritage Innovation show that:
- 48.3% of Industrial Heritage sites were owned by a preservation trust or society.
- 83.6% of preservation trusts or societies had charitable status.
- 44.8% of sites were accredited museums.
- 52.6% of sites had found it ‘quite difficult’ to secure public sector funding in the last three years.
- 73.7% of sites said they found it ‘fairly difficult’ or ‘very difficult’ to attract new volunteers.
- 72.4% of sites had original plant and machinery in situ.
Stage 2 of the survey, which is running across July, is a series of up to 12 interviews of those running industrial heritage sites across England, from entitely volunteer run sites, to the largest industrial heriage trusts. The results of the project will be published later in the year, including a free online seminar in the autumn.
Industrial Heritage Networks 