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

Military Grave & Memorial Restoration Project

Applicant: Royal Engineers Association

Project description: To support an initiative to combine heritage preservation with volunteer engagement. To restore neglected military graves and memorials across the UK and provide well-being and skill-building opportunities for serving and veteran Royal Engineers and their families.

Decision: Reject

Reintroducing the Glow Worm to the Willsbridge Valley

Applicant: Willsbridge Mill Community Refresh CIC

Project description: To reintroduce glow worms to the Willsbridge Valley within a forested area of approximately 2 hectares for the benefit of the community and to continue to protect and monitor the wildlife that exists on the site.

Decision: Reject

Stoke Damerel Church (St Andrew with St Luke): new roof to 15th century bell tower and other roof maintenance plus installation of replacement louvres in bell tower.

Applicant: The Parochial Church Council of Stoke Damerel

Project description: To complete essential roof repairs to preserve the structural integrity and heritage value, to support the long-term goal to maintain and self-sustain the church to be an inclusive community hub without compromising it as a place of worship.

Decision: Award grant of £20,591 (13%)

Chippenham - Our History

Applicant: Yesterday's Story CIC

Project description: For Wiltshire Victoria County History to publish their first volume on the historic market town of Chippenham. To create a community project to celebrate the achievement and bring local history to life for everyone.

Decision: Reject

Green shoots: An Oral History of the Gunnersbury Park Garden Estate

Applicant: Gunnersbury Park Garden Estate Society

Project description: To celebrate the centenary of the Gunnersbury Park Garden Estate, to bring residents together to explore the heritage through an oral history and communal gardening project.

Decision: Reject

The Dippers

Applicant: Valise Noire Storytelling Theatre

Project description: To rescue the heritage of women 'dippers' bathing machine attendants whose stories have vanished from official records. To transform fragmented historical traces into accessible community heritage. The legacy will be an archive at Dorset History Centre, a touring education pack and to strengthen community capacity for heritage engagement.

Decision: Reject

UK Heritage 3D Data at Risk: Developing a Strategy for Long Term Access & Storage

Applicant: Wikimedia UK

Project description: To safeguard the UK’s digital heritage at risk on the Sketchfab platform. To engage a diverse range of UK stakeholders in research to identify organisational and national needs related to digital 3D heritage content. To ensure the valuable cultural and academic resource remains accessible to researchers, educators and the public both in the UK and internationally.

Decision: Award grant of £56,198 (100%)

Chalk Rivers – Insects – Birds. Communicating a 'best case research analysis' could demonstrate how good farm practice restores the health of chalk rivers, nurtures insect life and can help reverse the decline of bird life in England.

Applicant: Cape Farewell (Ocean)

Project description: To study the Sydling Water in Dorset and to understand how a healthy chalk river should function ecologically. To work with scientists, farmers, citizen groups and artists to evaluate how this chalk stream is returning to robust health.

Decision: Reject

Connecting Communities

Applicant: Bursledon Brickworks Museum Trust

Project description: To improve the museum’s financial sustainability, to increase visitor numbers and re-visit the Audience Development Plan. To raise awareness of the museum, improve its offer for families and begin to remove barriers to visiting and address longer-term strategic plans.

Decision: Award grant of £79,014 (94%)

D-Punk: Disability and Punk

Applicant: 104 projects CIC

Project description: To examine a culture which celebrated disabled fashion and difference and examine how punk was a voice questioning the establishment and how that philosophy led to direct action with the disability rights movement of the 1980s and 90s.

Decision: Award grant of £85,000 (100%)

Playing Out: A Natural History of Children's Play

Applicant: Bounce Theatre Community Interest Company

Project description: To co-create with children and take the lead as heritage researchers. Use archival images to explore how children's relationship with nature, play and public space has changed over time. To celebrate heritage as a living and dynamic process to recognise the diverse ways children interact with history, space and each other.

Decision: Reject

Paper, People and the Power of Water: Papermaking Communities of the River Culm

Applicant: Double Elephant CIC

Project description: To co-create and share the untold stories of papermills along the River Culm. To explore natural, social, industria, and global heritage themes, as well as nature-based solutions for the landscape.

Decision: Reject

"Our lives, not just a song & dance" (working title)

Applicant: Apsara Arts

Project description: To explore South Asian stories of people who settled in the 1960s–70s, through how and why old songs and films have had a big cultural impact in their lives and memory, and how they became a part of their British life.

Decision: Award grant of £106,980 (100%)

Newhaven Heritage Stories

Applicant: Sussex Community Development Association Ltd

Project description: To collaborate with a community historian to focus on ‘hidden’ histories of Newhaven from the 1960s to the present day. To support community-based heritage research, create a workshop programme, community events, touring exhibition, book, educational resources and walk. To enhance community wellbeing and pride of place, build social connections, a sense of belonging and increase skills and knowledge.

Decision: Award grant of £114,894 (100%)

Capturing and celebrating the 800-year history of Ringwood as a Market Town

Applicant: Ringwood Town Council

Project description: To mark the 800th Anniversary through a series of events, installations, exhibitions and celebrations. To provide a unique opportunity to mark this milestone and create a lasting record of Ringwood market through the ages.

Decision: Reject

Circus of Dreams - The Sangers & the heritage of Dreamland Our title reflects that we are bringing the history of the Sangers alive again, with strong reference to the visible presence of Dreamland.

Applicant: LOOPING THE LOOP CIC

Project description: To co-create with local people to explore Sanger’s legacy. To run workshops, help people discover new skills, learn to research, and contribute to a community event to celebrate the Sangers, in Dreamland. To co-create a touring community exhibition and publication and deposit the research in local libraries and archives.

Decision: Reject

Creating a Platform for a Resilient Future

Applicant: Jubilee Pool Penzance Limited

Project description: To aid sustainability and boost income generation to prepare for further restoration work to reduce future maintenance burdens and enhance resilience.

Decision: Award grant of £137,012 (80%)

Test Card

Applicant: Museum of Colour C.I.C.

Project description: To capture oral histories and assure historical accuracy through partnerships. To build organisation resilience by digital up-skilling, increasing capacity and sustainability. To contribute to the UK’s national heritage story of community cohesion, uncover undocumented contributions and restore forgotten representations of the rich cultural diversity to the public eye.

Decision: Award grant of £143,454 (100%)

Repairing the Roof and Historic Stonework of St Bride's of Fleet Street

Applicant: The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of St Bride Fleet Street

Project description: To repair and preserve the roof and stonework which currently is a threat to the Grade I listed building. To engage new audiences within the changing community and create pathways to participation through digital outputs and creative engagement/consultation activity tied to the project.

Decision: Award grant of £152,301 (18%)

The Nature & Nurture Hub: Arlington

Applicant: The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

Project description: To create a new, free, accessible and public Nature & Nurture Hub – a ‘gateway’ into nature for the communities to connect with, enjoy and learn about their distinctive, local natural heritage.

Decision: Award grant of £156,745 (80%)

Holy Sepulchre, London: rekindling the past to build our future.

Applicant: The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of St. Sepulchre Without Newgate

Project description: To facilitate the future repair and conservation of the church and consider the introduction of sympathetic alterations to support sustainability. To strengthen resilience, undertake a Governance Review and prepare a Business Plan, as well as deliver critical pieces of work which will lay the foundations for a major capital repair project.

Decision: Award grant of £158,758 (94%)

From Past to Present: Changes in Sexuality and Relationship Support for People with Learning Disabilities

Applicant: Choice Support

Project description: To collect oral histories from 10 people with learning disabilities and 10 people who have worked closely with them in Kent, to focus on experiences in institutions and in their own homes. To explore how attitudes and support have changed the impact on lives, and lessons to improve future care.

Decision: Award grant of £187,383 (100%)

Under One Cover: Exploring the Work and Lives of Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland

Applicant: University of Exeter

Project description: To catalogue and research the collection to establish an internationally significant heritage archive. To share heritage through creative exploration of LGBTQ+ lives in rural Dorset, enhance inclusion and address the underrepresentation of LGBTQ+ communities in the heritage sector and launch a collaborative South West LGBTQ+ heritage platform to save LGBTQ+ heritage across the region.

Decision: Reject

Reviving Narrowboat Kilsby - A Jericho Living Heritage Project Community-led restoration and repurposing of a rare historic canal boat.

Applicant: Jericho Living Heritage Trust

Project description: To restore and repurpose Kilsby, a rare 112-year-old Fellows, Morton, and Clayton horse-drawn narrow boat. To involve volunteers on project leadership, communications, research and hands-on learning about life and livelihoods on the Oxford Canal. To document Kilsby’s re-build to gain and understand the practical, environmental and heritage considerations when restoring a historic boat for community use.

Decision: Award grant of £210,728 (87%)

Celebrating The Lady Byron Building's 75th anniversary and the Ealing Technical Institute and School of Art's Centenary: West London's Forgotten Creative and Vocational Education Heritage.

Applicant: University of West London

Project description: To celebrate two major milestones in west London’s educational and cultural history. To reconnect the heritage with the local community, create a permanent public exhibition space, provide online access to archive materials, deliver anniversary events and digitally preserve oral histories and archival items.

Decision: Reject

The Restoration and Celebration of South Molton's Historic Pannier Market.

Applicant: South Molton Town Council

Project description: To restore, secure and promote the heritage of the Grade II* listed Historic Pannier Market. To bring to life stories of the historic building and its role within the town and wider rural community, increase and diversify its use by the community, and raise awareness of the heritage and the importance of this historic building for future generations.

Decision: Award grant of £231,500 (49%)

Hidden Stories - Decolonising the Heritage of the Great Exhibition of 1851

Applicant: The Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine

Project description: To decolonise aspects of the heritage and unlock the hidden stories of innovators from global majority communities who contributed to the Great Exhibition and helped forge British ingenuity.

Decision: Reject

Intelligent Hands: Creating an inclusive space to make and learn Silversmithing.

Applicant: Bishopsland Educational Trust

Project description: To refurbish a 650 square foot area within a historic building and create a new, purpose-built creative silversmithing workshop. To enhance the capacity to deliver the postgraduate vocational skills programme and run short courses. To engage with the community and secure and house the collection of heritage silversmithing tools.

Decision: Reject

Cripping Culture: A Journey into Disability Arts Heritage

Applicant: Disability Arts Online

Project description: To research and reveal the achievements of disabled artists and activists who put disability rights on the map from the late 1970s onwards. To capture memories about elders and changemakers who established disability arts as a cornerstone of socially engaged practice and transformed the UK’s arts and culture landscape.

Decision: Award grant of £249,606 (80%)

Abbey Connects

Applicant: University of Reading

Project description: A partnership project to increase heritage interpretation and conservation, co-create new learning opportunities and link communities representing the mix of cultures and faiths locally to the spiritual sites of the middle Thames region. To embed understanding about the sacred landscape across the communities and build a sustainable, UK-wide legacy.

Decision: Award grant of £249,755 (89%)

Development of a Masterplan for the Iconic Scadbury Park

Applicant: London Borough of Bromley

Project description: To commission multi-disciplinary consultants to develop a holistic Masterplan to unlock the full potential of Scadbury – a 300-acre Local Nature Reserve, to make it fully accessible, enhance recreational opportunities and secure long-term sustainability for the community and volunteer groups who care for it.

Decision: Reject

Ignite - Youth Heritage Stories

Applicant: Royal Borough of Greenwich

Project description: To hire a temporary project team to engage with 24 young people from low socio-economic backgrounds to source and create archives. To digitise existing archives and review/catalogue the collection. A Youth Heritage exhibition is to launch the start of new fully accessible public heritage service.

Decision: Award grant of £250,000 (100%)

'The Ocean can be a Bridge' - Frederick Douglass in Exeter

Applicant: Fabian's Film Community Interest Company

Project description: To save a piece of lost Exeter history and put it into the mainstream consciousness of the city’s heritage infrastructure and local education.

Decision: Reject

Repair of the Jubilee Clock

Applicant: Bexhill Old Town Preservation Society Ltd

Project description: To refurbish the Jubilee Clock, put up in 1887, to mark the Golden Jubilee of the reign of Queen Victoria and sits at the heart of Bexhill Old Town.

Decision: Reject

Bristol: As it is and As it was.

Applicant: Action Hero

Project description: To publish a new intergenerational citizen-led portrait of Bristol in response to the Loxton Prints held in archive at Bristol Central Library. To gather stories, fragments and details of life in Bristol in 2025 in response to the prints.

Decision: Reject

Beyond Trends, It's Inheritance 1

Applicant: Suiteelife.mms CIC

Project description: To produce a storytelling event to celebrate Black British, African and Caribbean heritage. To explore how clothing, hair and oral storytelling act as cultural archives. Reconnect young Black Britons with their heritage, preserve oral histories and traditions, empower underrepresented creatives and foster intergenerational community and long-term cultural pride.

Decision: Reject

FGV Legacy Lab: Empowering Communities Through Culture, Education and Entrepreneurship

Applicant: FGV CIC

Project description: To establish a strong and inclusive ecosystem to foster education, entrepreneurship, cultural identity and social transformation in the Brazilian and wider immigrant communities in London. To create a physical and digital platform to host regular educational events, mentoring programmes, cultural heritage experiences and youth engagement initiatives.

Decision: Reject

Barnet Museum Environmental Improvement Project

Applicant: Barnet Museum and Local History Society

Project description: To secure the museum and its contents to provide a stable, energy-efficient environment for the protection of the building and its artefacts and the comfort of volunteers and visitors.

Decision: Reject

The Weather Museum

Applicant: Stepping Stones Collaboration for Recovery and Wellbeing

Project description: To serve as a living tribute to Bracknell’s significant historical role as the home of the Met Office, to engage its citizens to uncover, preserve and share the town's rich heritage. To foster a sense of pride in local heritage, strengthen community bonds and inspire a lifelong curiosity in weather and science.

Decision: Reject

Truck Art: Home Away From Home

Applicant: Vision Redbridge Culture & Leisure

Project description: To create the UK’s first electric ‘Truck Art’ truck to explore the theme ‘Home Away From Home’. To share stories of identity, heritage and, for diaspora communities, what they miss from their home countries. To inspire audiences to connect with heritage and gather oral histories as it travels to become an exhibition on wheels to celebrate migration, belonging and cultural pride.

Decision: Reject

Empowering Women & Uniting Communities through African Heritage Fashion

Applicant: The Calvary Land of Mercy C&S Church, Ajara Otito

Project description: To empower 40 individuals in Barking and Dagenham to equip them with sewing and design skills to establish small businesses in the textile and fashion sector to foster economic independence and reduce social inequality.

Decision: Reject

Lordship Bearstead and Beis Brucha

Applicant: Beis Brucha LTD

Project description: To research the Lordship Road local area and discover the history and connection between Beis Brucha maternity support, the Bearsted Memorial Hospital (serving 80% Orthodox Jewish women).

Decision: Reject

Buckfast Abbey Exhibitions

Applicant: Buckfast Abbey Trust

Project description: To conduct conservation work on over 200 priority items to leave them in better condition, better stored and stabilised for display.

Decision: Reject

Sterts In Circles, Then and Then

Applicant: Sterts Arts and Environmental Centre

Project description: To re-connect local people to two local heritage narratives – ancient and modern. Ancient heritage: the Neolithic people who left stone circles like the Hurlers and modern heritage: to preserve Ewart Sturrock the founder’s story of Sterts.

Decision: Reject

RAVENSWOOD Adventist Heritage Southampton

Applicant: South England Conference of Seventh Day Adventists

Project description: To create a heritage centre within the church building to preserve Adventist history in the UK and to preserve historical connections with the Mayflower pilgrims.

Decision: Reject

Grant increases

Docking Station

Applicant: University of Kent

Project description: To develop in partnership with Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust and Medway Council, to restore and regenerate the Police Section House of the former Royal Dockyard Chatham. To transform the Police Section House into a new epicentre for creative digital innovation.

Decision: Award a grant increase of £249,966 to make a total grant of £3,817,366 (30%)