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Community heritage

Community heritage

A group of people with handmade props and decorations
Act for Action CIC, recipients of a community heritage grant from One Knowsley. Photo: Act for Action CIC.
Celebrating community heritage can help people come together, feel pride in where they live and save stories and traditions.

Since 1994 we have awarded £460million to more than 24,100 community and cultural heritage projects across the UK.

What do we support?

We fund projects that are researching, conserving and celebrating the heritage of a community or place.

These projects could include lots of types of heritage, such as people celebrating living customs or improving a historic green space. What's most important is that the project involves and benefits the community.

Project ideas

Our funding could help people:

  • research the impact of a historical event on their town, and share their findings through displays, talks and online
  • investigate the names on a war memorial
  • crowdsource documents and photographs linked to the LGBTQ+ community, creating an online archive and exhibition
  • set up an audio trail around a range of buildings, parks and monuments in a town
  • enable a youth group to research their local history and create an animated film about their learnings

For more inspiration, see the stories below or browse projects we've funded.

How to get funding

If you have an idea for a project, we would love to hear from you.

Explore our available funding
A room with a high vaulted ceiling, a large glitter ball and trestle style tables. The room is warmly lit. Large glass doors look out onto a courtyard.
The newly restored dining hall and courtyard at The Buttermarket. Credit: Sam Sabatelli, for Redruth Revival CIC.

Projects

Rediscovering the market town of Redruth

A cluster of Grade II listed buildings, collectively known as the Buttermarket, has been transformed into a thriving cultural and community hub.

A person teaching a young child about past events and showing them an old type writer
Child learning at the Black Country Living Museum. Credit: Richard Jinman

Projects

Our Heritage: supporting D/deaf children in Walsall

Families of children with D/deafness or hearing impairments took part in social activities that taught them about local heritage, traditions and skills passed down through generations.

Three people are walking side by side in a pretty green landscape, they are talking and smiling
Harriet Bennett, Land Management Officer for the Chilterns Landscape Partnership project and Andrew Stubbings, of Manor Farm with Drew Bennellick, our Head of Land, Sea and Nature. Photo: Oliver Dixon.

Projects

Chalk, Cherries and Chairs – Working together for the Chilterns

Over five years, the Chilterns Conservation Board worked with partners to engage communities, celebrate the rich heritage of the area and enhance habitats and wildlife.

An artist's impression of a building with glass walls and a low wooden roof, with the words 'staffordshire history centre' on the side of the building
The extension will provide space for exhibitions and activities with storage space for 55 years of future collections. Image: Staffordshire County Council.

Projects

A new hub for sharing Staffordshire’s history

Thanks to £4.8million in National Lottery funding, Staffordshire History Centre will provide state of the art archive facilities for communities.

Three black people take part in a workshop on black history. All three people have dark skin of various shades, the focus of the image is a woman holding a magazine with black people on the cover
A Rebel Curators workshop at M Shed in October 2024. Andreann Asibey (left), Jazz Thompson (middle) and Bandele Iyapo (right). Photo: Julz Davis.

Blogs

Rebel Curators: reclaiming narratives of slavery at Bristol’s M-Shed

Co-creation with the African-Caribbean community, made possible with £70,000 in National Lottery funding, is another step towards including their perspectives in telling Bristol’s history.

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