National Lottery Heritage Grants £10,000 to £250,000

Lady Howard: fact and folklore

Applicant: Wren Music

Project description: To establish a folk song study group and research the history of folk songs and their feasibility as historical evidence, specifically relating to women’s history. To use this research to inform the creation of new folk music material to be performed at an event at Okehampton Castle. 

Decision: Reject

Ground Provisions for Saturday Soup

Applicant: Five ASide Theatre CIC

Project description: To deliver specialist heritage training to equip a lead artist with skills in folklore traditions, ethical storytelling and workshop facilitation. To preserve the intangible cultural heritage of African and Caribbean folklore traditions held by members of the Windrush generation through workshops, recordings and a final performance, led by the lead artist.

Decision: Award grant of £20,377 (53%)

Tower Hamlets' Markets and Trading Places

Applicant: Mindful Photo Lab CIC

Project description: To celebrate and preserve intangible cultural heritage and built heritage of Tower Hamlets’ trading places by delivering community events, creative workshops and training in archiving, oral history and sustainable print. To record oral histories, create a magazine designed to help residents interpret and preserve heritage and deliver an exhibition and heritage map.

Decision: Reject

Rekindling St Andrew's, Kingsbury: continued

Applicant: The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of Kingsbury: St Andrew

Project description: To facilitate the future repair and conservation of the Grade II* listed church by developing a new business plan, undertaking research and consultation with neighbouring communities and audience groups, preparing for a future capital works project and identifying new income streams to improve organisational sustainability.

Decision: Award grant of £49,233 (99%)

Flax Forward – From land to linen and beyond – Telling the story of a plant, a town and a landscape.

Applicant: Wessex Community Assets Ltd

Project description: To conduct research into the history of Bridport’s flax-growing heritage. To deliver exhibitions, events and educational opportunities. 

Decision: Award grant of £51,740 (63%)

Revealing Dorset's Hidden Treasure

Applicant: The Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society

Project description: To curate a temporary exhibition, showcasing Dorset Museum & Art Gallery’s Treasure acquisitions and highlighting Dorset’s archaeology and history. To deliver events engaging audiences with the exhibition and its themes, and to pilot a new programme inviting museums across Dorset to borrow treasures from the collection that hold importance to local communities. 

Decision: Award grant of £62,607 (56%)

We Were Always Here: The hidden LGBTQIA+ social history of Wiltshire

Applicant: Swindon and Wiltshire Pride

Project description: To uncover and celebrate Wiltshire’s LGBTQ+ history from the early 19th century to the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2014. To deliver three key outputs, including an illustrated book to be distributed for free to schools, museums and libraries; a portable exhibition; and a permanent online resource. 

Decision: Award grant of £69,595 (100%)

BeeSkilled – BeeSocial

Applicant: The BumbleBee Alliance CIC

Project description: To provide meaningful knowledge and heritage skills around endangered or at-risk bees for the community, including surrounding villages, environmental groups, beekeepers and landowners. To modernise and deliver digital outputs and engagement activities with underserved audiences and to improve bee habitats and local bee knowledge.

Decision: Award grant of £73,067 (91%)

Salt and Stone: Capturing Memories of Sandwich and Deal

Applicant: Digital Drama CIC

Project description: To deliver training workshops for local volunteers and enable participants to learn reminiscence, oral history and storytelling skills. This will culminate in the creation of a new community ballad and BSL-interpreted short film featuring archival material from museum collections.

Decision: Award grant of £75,962 (97%)

Cornerstone URC/Methodist Church, Torpoint, Building Repair and Community Engagement Project

Applicant: Cornerstone Church Torpoint

Project description: To carry out repair works to the 19th-century Wesleyan Chapel of Cornerstone URC/Methodist Church in Torpoint, Cornwall, and to set it an ongoing sustainable maintenance plan. To install wheelchair access and to increase the letting of the building to community users. 

Decision: Reject

Hastings Traditional Jack In The Green

Applicant: Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green

Project description: To record and expand the traditions of the Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green. To deliver workshops aimed at a wider audience to explore a shared heritage and pass on histories and traditions to a younger audience. 

Decision: Award grant of £97,951 (88%)

'Flying Stress': Mental Health and Well-being within RAF Fighter Command during the Second World War

Applicant: The Bentley Priory Battle of Britain Trust

Project description: To explore the heritage of mental health and wellbeing within Royal Air Force through research conducted by volunteers. To deliver a temporary exhibition from the research with a supporting programme of wellbeing workshops, concerts, walks, family activities and new resources for visitors with dementia.

Decision: Award grant of £114,062 (100%)

Transforming Littlehampton Museum: Building Solid Foundations for the Next 100 Years

Applicant: Littlehampton Town Council

Project description: To conduct an options appraisal and prioritise options relating to the museum’s housing, governance and collections. To rationalise existing holdings and co-collect contemporary objects and oral histories with the local community. To deliver a 2028 exhibition celebrating the museum’s centenary. 

Decision: Award grant of £127,913 (94%)

Save our Spire

Applicant: The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of Whitchurch in the Diocese of Oxford

Project description: To repair the spire at St Mary’s Church in Reading. To raise the profile of the church, develop engagement with schools and the public and develop an online presence. 

Decision: Award grant of £151,069 (59%)

Red Room Inspired: Engineering Futures

Applicant: Haynes Motor Museum Ltd

Project description: To redevelop and redisplay the Red Room exhibition at Haynes Motor Museum and to deliver an engagement and education program for young people focusing on heritage engineering skills.

Decision: Award grant of £180,000 (62%)

Britannia making waves

Applicant: Britannia Sailing Trust SCIO

Project description: To continue the restoration of the Historic Ship Britannia alongside a programme of educational and community engagement opportunities.

Decision: Award grant of £195,232 (88%)

Paths to Inclusion

Applicant: National Trails UK

Project description: To co-design and deliver more inclusive and accessible content with the aim of addressing information barriers preventing people from minoritised ethnic communities and disabled people from experiencing National Trails.

Decision: Award grant of £200,387 (97%)

120 Years of Helping: The Story of Improving Lives Plymouth

Applicant: Improving Lives Plymouth

Project description: To document Improving Lives Plymouth’s history through digital archiving, oral histories and creative community engagement. To create a professional archive, deliver women-focused creative health activities and strengthen fundraising and future sustainability. 

Decision: Reject

Leconfield Hall phase 2

Applicant: The Leconfield Hall

Project description: To deliver building works to the Grade II* listed Leconfield Hall in Petworth, transforming the lower floors of the building into a usable space. 

Decision: Reject

Saving Treslothan church: saving heritage through pilgrimage, history & nature

Applicant: The Parochial Church Council of St John Treslothan

Project description: To undertake repairs and restoration on the Grade II listed Treslothan Church in Cornwall with the aim of removing it from the Heritage at Risk Register. To increase the church’s role as a community space through information boards, wildlife conservation and visitor initiatives. 

Decision: Award grant of £244,947 (97%)

St Andrew's Church Spire Conservation

Applicant: The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of the Barnsbury Team Ministry

Project description: To conduct repairs on the spire of the Grade II listed St Andrew’s Church in Thornhill Square, London. To expand on existing community engagement activities. 

Decision: Award grant of £249,950 (27%)

#LC Nature Ridge Landscape Connections

Applicant: Wiltshire Council (on behalf on North Wessex Downs National Landscape)

Project description: To begin to plan and build a partnership for a project addressing the decline in habitats and species due to climate change along the Ridgeway National Trail, ‘Britain’s oldest road’, linking the North Wessex Downs National Landscape and Chilterns National Landscape. 

Decision: Award grant of £249,951 (94%)

Expanding community outreach and enrichment by securing, celebrating and sharing the heritage of St Nicholas' Church

Applicant: The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of St Nicholas with Tortington, Arundel

Project description: To make repairs to the south aisle building at St Nicholas’ Church in Arundel, a Grade I listed building currently on the Heritage at Risk Register. To improve access to their archives through the creation of a digital archive and the delivery of an engagement programme aimed at schools, researchers, the public and vulnerable adults and young people. To enhance biodiversity initiatives.

Decision: Award grant of £250,000 (56%)

Welcome to Wandsworth: a shared heritage

Applicant: Wandsworth Council

Project description: To deliver a series of projects as part of Wandsworth Borough Council’s London Borough of Culture programme legacy year, including creating memory boxes for people with dementia, creating resource packs for primary schools, delivering training for teachers, developing a mobile exhibition celebrating Clapham Grand’s history, delivering an exhibition and events programme for Pride Month 2026 and promoting the launch of digital outputs. 

Decision: Award grant of £250,000 (80%)

40th Anniversary Documentary Project

Applicant: Tamil Welfare Association (Newham) UK

Project description: To exhibit the history of the Tamil Welfare Association and the heritage of the Tamil diaspora in the UK, by organising volunteers and semi-professionals into a production team and producing a documentary using new and archival materials. 

Decision: Reject

Building Heritage: Cotswold Stone Walling for Future Generations

Applicant: Churchdown Village Junior School

Project description: To construct a traditional Cotswold dry stone wall on the grounds of Churchdown Village Junior School, Gloucester, and provide a space for school children to learn about and engage in walling techniques, local geology and history. 

Decision: Reject

Cultural Heritage Month

Applicant: Cultural Fashion & Arts CIC

Project description: To pilot a Cultural Heritage Month in May–June 2026 celebrating the heritage of its participants by delivering multiple cultural heritage activities focused on storytelling, creativity and inter-community learning. 

Decision: Reject

Echoes of Us Wandsworth: An Intergenerational Dialogue

Applicant: When Blossom Comes CIC

Project description: To continue to deliver the work of a creative sound heritage project in Wandsworth’s Winstanley and York Road estates, London, by delivering the created oral history material to three local secondary schools. To create digital resources to support schools’ access to these materials. 

Decision: Reject

Voices of Home: Preserving the Heritage of the Homeless Community

Applicant: Kresso Homeless Service Ltd

Project description: To deliver community heritage and digital skills workshops with people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. To preserve and celebrate their lived experiences and to combine practical support with creative participation. 

Decision: Reject

Disabled Toilets Project

Applicant: The Parochial Church Council of Compton Martin

Project description: To replace the toilet facilities at the former 19th-century school within the curtilage of a Grade I listed Norman church with facilities free to use for disabled users and families with young children. 

Decision: Reject

Restoring the heritage of the National Gas Turbine Establishment, Pyestock

Applicant: Farnborough Air Sciences Trust

Project description: To produce a documentary on the history of the National Gas Turbine Establishment, including interviews with former employees, involving local media studies students. 

Decision: Reject

The Burundian, Rwandan, and Ugandan Traditional Marriage Culture Project

Applicant: Fort-4-Youth Foundation

Project description: To record and share traditional marriage culture with young people of East African heritage through workshops, interviews, training and creative heritage engagement opportunities.

Decision: Reject

'KFOR and Kosova +25' in Winchester

Applicant: Heartstone

Project description: To expand the photography exhibition ‘KFOR and Kosova +25’ to mark the 25th anniversary of the KFOR (Kosovo Force) intervention and to highlight the role of the Royal Green Jackets in the KFOR peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. To deliver educational activities and resources for school children relating to the exhibition. 

Decision: Reject

The VDT Works: Preserving 30 Years of Socially Engaged Dance-Theatre Heritage

Applicant: Vincent Dance Theatre

Project description: To preserve the Vincent Dance Theatre Archive through physical preservation and digitisation, and to improve access by creating a digital resource available online. To integrate the archive material into creative and engagement activities.

Decision: Reject

Heritage Connect: Preserving Kenyan Adulthood Initiation Culture in the Diaspora

Applicant: Revival House

Project description: To conduct surveys of Kenyans who migrated to the UK over 25 years ago, exploring their experiences, the importance of traditions in their upbringing and aspects of traditions that older generations would wish to have preserved. To host bi-monthly traditional activities, to produce digital and social media outputs and to host an exhibition showcasing the stories and traditional activities captured throughout the project.

Decision: Reject

SWV Rivers Task Force – Pilot Project HEAL (Healing Environments for Armed Forces through river Landscapes)

Applicant: Supporting Wounded Veterans

Project description: To combine environmental conservation with the rehabilitation, skills development, and reintegration of veterans through a programme of training, environmental monitoring and research, and community engagement activities. 

Decision: Reject

The HeArt of Care

Applicant: Rosetta Life

Project description: To partner with care organisations and deliver an exhibition on the care traditions of different communities in Britain. To produce a new website linked to these collections.

Decision: Reject

Bideford – Retold

Applicant: Libraries Unlimited South West

Project description: To revitalise the Chope Collection at Bideford Library, 500 books bequeathed by local historian Richard Pearse Chope, through engaging young people with the collection, creating new displays and a new digital experience, and increasing young people’s engagement with the collection. 

Decision: Award grant of £203,195 (93%)

Sea & Stewardship: Women's Surfing Histories on Protected UK Coasts

Applicant: Wave Wahines CIC

Project description: To uncover, record and celebrate the history of women’s surfing along protected UK coasts by collecting oral histories, digitising personal archives and co-creating a travelling micro-exhibition and surf-heritage trails.

Decision: Reject

Empowering Youth Through Creativity and Heritage

Applicant: AGD Conglomerate CIC

Project description: To deliver a series of creative and educational workshops and events aimed at young people that focus on celebrating and preserving cultural, creative and community heritage and build employability skills. To incorporate digital technology and creative media to connect young people with heritage and history, encourage them to express their identities and record, archive and share heritage content.

Decision: Reject

Langport Town Hall 300 Project

Applicant: Langport Area CIO

Project description: To repair and renovate the Grade II listed 18th-century town hall in Langport, Somerset. 

Decision: Reject

Rio Forever!

Applicant: The Rio Centre (Dalston) Limited

Project description: To preserve and celebrate the Grade II listed cinema Rio and its history through a series of public engagement events and through commissioning structural, sustainability, access and condition surveys intended to inform a conservation and development plan. 

Decision: Reject

Forging a Future, By Not Forgetting the Past 

Applicant: Surrey Heath Borough Council

Project description: To review the collection and develop displays at the Surrey Heath Museum. To deliver a range of digital outputs, events and engagement spaces and to increase accessibility to the collection. 

Decision: Reject

Wilton Gaol

Applicant: Photinia Ltd

Project description: To redevelop the historic and Grade II listed Georgian Wilton police station and gaol buildings in Taunton, Somerset. To develop low-income housing and private residential, business start-up and small business units and community support services from the existing historic and modern buildings. 

Decision: Reject

Grant percentage increase

Capturing Brighton's last WW2 veterans

Applicant: Take Shelter 

Project description: To capture, preserve and share the first-hand experiences of eight Brighton wartime veterans through film and audio recordings. To improve physical, sensory and intellectual access to Brighton’s wartime heritage and create a more relevant, engaging and participatory offer for the schools and community programmes. To build Take Shelter’s capacity as a new charity to deliver an expanding programme through a business plan, trustee succession planning and volunteer strategy. To celebrate the project’s achievements over the weekend of the 80th anniversary of VE Day in May 2025.

Decision: Agree change in grant percentage from 74% to 92%

Transforming the Tower of London Schools and Community Programme

Applicant: Historic Royal Palaces

Project description: To plan, conserve and adapt the west wing of the historic Waterloo Block into a new three-floor learning and community centre. To develop a programme of activities designed to engage people of all ages and abilities with their heritage. To double the onsite capacity to  around 200,000 education visitors annually, plus an additional 115,000 offsite/online. To share the award-winning content nationwide via new media facilities and regular outreach programmes and to triple the number of community participants to 23,500 by 2033–34.

Decision: Agree change in grant percentage from 25% to 39.2%