Cultures and memories

Since 1994 we have awarded over £480million to more than 24,500 community and cultural heritage projects across the UK.
What do we support?
We fund projects which help to explore, save and celebrate the traditions, customs, skills and knowledge of different communities.
This cultural heritage is sometimes referred to as intangible or living heritage. This is because it is constantly changing and kept alive when practiced or performed.
We also fund projects which document and share people’s memories. This often involves capturing oral histories and ensuring they are accessible now and in the future.
Project ideas
Our funding could help people:
- research and share oral traditions, such as storytelling or local dialects
- train others in traditional skills and crafts, from dry stone walling and blacksmithing to basket weaving and textile making
- research the origins of culture, such as music, theatre or dance, and create performances influenced by past styles
- share the history and fun of celebrations, festivals or rituals with new audiences, from games and cooking to carnivals and fayres
- capture accounts of traditional knowledge or pass it on, such as woodland management or home remedies
- record the stories of ordinary people through oral histories, for example about growing up, migration or work
- retell people’s memories about a place or event, such as a long-stay hospital, the miners' strikes or the punk movement
How to get funding
If you have an idea for a project, we would love to hear from you.

Projects
Remedies Remembered
Slough Roots enabled women from English, Asian and West Indian backgrounds to research traditional healing remedies still used in the UK today.

Projects
Remembering 1960s New Brighton through the photography of Keith Medley
Our Our Day Out encouraged people to explore the Keith Medley photographic archive based at Liverpool John Moores University.

Projects
Recipes From Me to You - Somali Cuisine A New Experience For All""
The Recipes From Me to You project captured previously unrecorded information about the culinary heritage of Somali families living in the Granby area of Liverpool.

Projects
Galsworthy and Human Battles on the Home Front
Volunteers helped to create an audio-visual exhibition exploring local historical figure John Galsworthy’s role in the First World War and his legacy in Kingston.

Projects
Bird in a Cage: The achievements of Lady Rhondda and the WSPU Newport
Pupils in Newport and Caerphilly researched the history of Lady Rhondda, celebrating her contribution to the suffragette movement and the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Newport.

Projects
Rossendale Footwear Heritage
The Rossendale Valley's fascinating but little known history of footwear manufacturing is now being shared for the first time with a wide and diverse audience.

Projects
Are Ye Askin
To mark the opening of the Beacon Arts Centre, Rig Arts celebrated the history of entertainment in Inverclyde throughout the 20th century.

Projects
Bread In Common
Bread in Common explored 2,000 years of Newcastle baking traditions, from wartime loaves made from potato to the arrival of new breads from Poland and the Middle East.

Projects
Race through the Generations
This multi-media, intergenerational storytelling project explored the racial heritage of Bristol and South Gloucestershire.

Projects
The experiences of women workers in the manufacturing industries in Wales 1945-1975
The Women’s Archive of Wales recorded the experiences of women working in factories across the country after 1945, filling a gap in our social history.

Projects
Queenhithe Dock Heritage Timeline
The heritage timeline will explore the histories of people and communities who have influenced the only surviving Anglo Saxon dock, Queenhithe dock.

Projects
Preservation and Promotion of the Heritage of St. Dunstan's Parish Church
The Grade I-listed St Dunstan’s Church, often referred to as the ‘Cathedral of the Weald’, has been opened up to a wider audience.