England, London & South: delegated decisions April 2023
National Lottery Grants for Heritage
South Asian Seafarer Stories
Applicant: Eastside Community Heritage
Project description: To celebrate South Asian History Month through capturing the personal stories of people from South Asian Heritage (and their descendants), who worked on boats and ships around the Royal Docks. In particular their association with Chunchie Way, a road near Victoria Docks named after Kamal Chunchie from Sri Lanka, who set up welfare support for sailors, local dock workers and their families in the 1920s after active service for Britain during the First World War.
Decision: Award grant of £9,477
Walking with Wildlife
Applicant: Richard Jefferies Museum Trust
Project description: Commemorating the 175th anniversary of the birth of Richard Jefferies’ (1848–1887), a nature writer and proto-ecologist. The museum will bring people, places, and natural history together through a 175 mile wildlife walk, enjoying the natural world which Jefferies loved. The project will raise awareness of the wellbeing benefits of being out in nature, and the issues of access to it for everyone.
Decision: Award grant of £9,850
Costing the Earth: Bath's Changing Environment
Applicant: Bath Industrial Heritage Trust Limited
Project description: To explore and engage local schools and community groups with the changing landscapes of the city and surrounding areas over the past 300 years. This project will be delivered through workshops, oral histories, an events programme and an exhibition at the Museum of Bath.
Decision: Award grant of £10,850
Living in the Round – Crafting a Better Wellbeing
Applicant: BCP Council
Project description: An experimental archaeology proposal aiming to build a replica roundhouse at a scheduled ancient monument site in Dorset and begin a digitisation campaign for the site’s archaeological collection. A rich programme of events, integrated into the three year project cycle, targets a wide range of groups from local schools and scientific societies to mental health organisations.
Decision: Award grant of £63,278
Community Fruit Garden and New Volunteer Base: Project Planning
Applicant: The Chiswick House and Gardens Trust
Project description: To contribute to the future resilience of Chiswick House and Gardens Trust through testing community and learning activities, developing RIBA 3 designs for the community fruit garden alongside a garden designer, and further developing their fundraising team to raise funds for a larger project to develop the community fruit garden and learning hub.
Decision: Award grant of £162,379
Whitchurch Silk Mill: Weaving Futures
Applicant: Whitchurch Silk Mill Trust
Project description: A resilience-focused project designed to strengthen the heritage silk-weaving legacy of Whitchurch Silk Mill in Hampshire, to be delivered over two years. This addresses key areas of challenge: securing its silk-weaving skills resource for the future as a core part of its visitor offer and income diversification, and fundraising to ensure longer-term financial stability.
Decision: Award grant of £167,986
Voices of Change
Applicant: Immediate Theatre
Project description: To uncover and explore the stories of migrant communities in Hackney and Newham and celebrate their contribution to their local area. Working with Hackney Museum and Archives and Newham Archives, this offers good opportunities for volunteer skills development and to engage local residents who have not previously been involved in heritage.
Decision: Award grant of £249,500
WonderDusk: Celebrating the Surrey Hills Landscape and Woodlands through the Arts
Applicant: Surrey County Council
Project description: Taking inspiration from the nature and heritage of the Surrey Hills, Surrey Hills Arts will work in partnership with National Trust to deliver a community programme bringing people together in this protected landscape. The project’s aim is to improve individuals’ wellbeing, build community cohesion and educate people on how to care for nature and wildlife.
Decision: Award grant of £9,000
Edmonton's Soul Food
Applicant: Cooking Champions
Project description: To celebrate and preserve the rich cultural cooking heritage of many of the different communities within Edmonton and Ponders End, one of the most ethnically diverse areas in England. The project would enable key recipes and techniques to be recorded and shared amongst members of the community and made available to local schools and communities. Larger-scale copies of these recipes would also be produced to be displayed around the borough.
Decision: Award grant of £9,620
Our Land – Doorstep Arts
Applicant: Doorstep Arts CIC
Project description: There are only two caves in the world where three or more different species of humans are found (Homo heidelbergensis, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens), and only one cave open to the general public: Kents Cavern. This project aims to uncover areas of Kents Cavern's heritage and history through the lens of 20 local artists, to connect, engage and feel ownership and pride over Torbay’s history and archaeological significance.
Decision: Award grant of £9,620
Play Memories of Tottenham Residents
Applicant: Haringey Play Association
Project description: This intergenerational multimedia project will bring the community together, as 10 year olds work alongside 90 year olds, documenting the importance of playing, play spaces and adventure playgrounds within this urban area. The project will teach filmmaking, research and data collection skills to a diverse group of children aged 10 to 15. This will enable them to film the interviewees chosen to share their memories.
Decision: Award grant of £9,748
River Thames Bat Surveys Richmond
Applicant: Father Thames Trust
Project description: To work with volunteers in the community to train them to carry out seven monthly surveys, teach them about bats and their habitats, and look at the impact of lighting and new bat friendly lighting put in place with London's Arcadia project. The data will be shared with the UK Bat Conservation Trust and published. It will also be shared with key organisations such as Phillips Lighting UK and local bat Groups.
Decision: Award grant of £9,749
Pioneer Tales Revisited
Applicant: The Living Archive Project
Project Description: In 1985, Living Archive produced 'Pioneer Tales', a documentary photography project chronicling the first wave of incomers to Milton Keynes. The aim is to revisit the ethos of this project to create 'Pioneer Tales Revisited', this time exploring the stories of people from Milton Keynes's many diverse communities. Working with a local documentary photographer, alongside film and audio from the interviews, an online storybook will be created, which will be made available on the Living Archive website.
Decision: Award grant of £9,955
On The Map – Journeys to Romford
Applicant: The Artful Willows
Project description: To explore the heritage of older residents living at Willows Care Home as well as other local people living in Romford, documenting where they have come from and their journey to living in the Willows or nearby. The aim is to develop a sense of place and pride in the local area, and will be delivered through stories of peoples’ lived experience, gathering archived material, exploring maps, photographs, and research.
Decision: Award grant of £10,000
NL 20 Retold: Trowbridge's past interpreted by its future – exhibition project
Applicant: Trowbridge Town Council
Project description: To produce an exhibition that aims to build links and lasting relationships, to actively engage and include key groups of local young people who are currently underrepresented in the museum’s visitor profile. A collaborative project involving selected groups of young people from 5 to 18 years old, including those from severely economically challenged families.
Decision: Award grant of £10,000
Queer Crawley Heritage Project
Applicant: Crawley LGBT
Project description: This project will involve LGBTQ+ people in engaging in heritage for the first time in their lives, including a group of project volunteers as well as local people who will visit Crawley Museum to see their heritage for the first time. It will focus on the intersection between religion and being LGBTQ+. It will also target a broad range of ages among the volunteers and interviewees on the project to engage a wider number of people with this unique heritage.
Decision: Award grant of £10,000
My Town – children exploring local heritage
Applicant: Inspiring Audio Ltd
Project description: This nine-month project will be cross-territory and will involve a number of museums across the UK. It will engage children and families with their local heritage through workshops and the creation of new audio content based on their experiences.
Decision: Award grant of £34,682
Reading Windrush 75th Festival
Applicant: Alliance for Cohesion and Racial Equality Ltd
Project description: The project will mark the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush in Britain and will engage people from traditionally underserved communities in the research and celebration of their heritage.
Decision: Award grant of £45,269
Tale of Tawaifs – revised
Applicant: Kalakar Limited
Project description: To explore the cultural heritage of Tawaifs, who were courtesans in pre-colonial India. The project aims to research and digitise a collection of LPs and objects, engage with audiences in East London, produce a script based on the collection and stage two musical performances.
Decision: Award grant of £48,418
Developing Dalston's Black Heritage
Applicant: Innercity Films
Project description: To engage local residents in a heritage project to celebrate multicultural heritage and personal stories, particularly young people of the Black British and African and Caribbean members of the community. The project will be delivered through photography, documentaries and education, teaching skills development and social awareness.
Decision: Award grant of £55,800
Impact of Foreign Food Culture Heritage in West London 2
Applicant: Wings of Hope Community Association
Project description: This project will focus on the history of foreign food culture in West London from 1970 to 2020. It will document the history and impact of Chinese, Lebanese, Indian, Ethiopian, Caribbean and other restaurants in the area and will capture memories of restaurant staff, owners and customers.
Decision: Award grant of £79,925
Great Western Railway Hospital – NHS 75th Anniversary
Applicant: The New Mechanics Institution Preservation Trust Limited
Project description: To celebrate the NHS 75th Anniversary in Swindon, particularly the former Great Western Railway (GWR) Hospital heritage in the Railway Village. The project aims to increase the opening times of the village museum for the public and school visits and will be delivered through museum tours, an exhibition, a heritage walking tour and a website.
Decision: Reject
St John the Baptist Church, Hatherleigh, project
Applicant: Hatherleigh Parochial Church Council
Project description: To carry out essential repairs to the Grade l listed church, including the installation of facilities to improve disability access. A series of activities will also be delivered to enable local people to engage in the project and learn more about their local heritage. Volunteers from the local community, youth club, Hatherleigh history society and others will assist with recording the heritage of the church, together with providing mentoring support.
Decision: Award grant of £127,219
The Word-Road Home: bringing alive the literary heritage of South West England
Applicant: Literature Works
Project description: To provide an opportunity for new audiences in areas that are facing economic challenges to engage with a variety of topics through literary and cultural heritage. The project will focus on writers that address themes related to natural heritage, the industrial heritage of mining, feminism, LGBTQ+ activism and migration.
Decision: Reject
Bell Frame Repair
Applicant: Holcombe Burnell Parochial Church Council
Project description: To restore the bells (two of which are medieval and of historical interest) and bell frame from further corrosion to avoid a possible impact on the stability of the church tower, so that the church bells will be able to be kept ringing for the benefit of the parish, a tradition which has continued for the past several hundred years.
Decision: Reject
Creating a resilient Park Yoga
Applicant: Park Yoga
Project description: Park Yoga provides free yoga in 28 public parks across Southwest England every Sunday morning from May to September. The aim of the project is to connect people to the natural outdoors through yoga sessions, improving wellbeing and creating a positive ripple effect through communities.
Decision: Reject
A History of Esher Rugby Football Club
Applicant: Esher Rugby Football Club Ltd
Project description: To explore and celebrate the almost 100-year history of Esher Rugby Club and their role in local community heritage. A video will be professionally produced illustrating the club's history, and the part it has played in local culture, heritage, and people’s lives over the past 100 years. A celebration event will be hosted at the club in the lead-up to centenary celebrations.
Decision: Award grant of £9,250
Temperance Hall Kitchen
Applicant: Penryn Town Council
Project description: To engage more people with their heritage to ensure it is valued and protected in the future. The project aims to maintain strong links with the local community, further develop new relationships and target communities beyond the geographic area. This project will also play its part in improving the amenities within the building to remain relevant.
Decision: Reject
Organ Appeal in Commemoration of the Coronation of King Charles lll
Applicant: The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of St Peter and St Paul, Saltwood
Project description: A six-month project to repair, protect and refurbish the 1870 Walker & Sons Ltd Pipe Organ within a Grade II listed church. This work will also improve future maintenance access.
Decision: Reject
Old Town Hall, Brading
Applicant: The Brading Town Trust
Project description: To preserve the Old Town Hall and its contents for future generations. The present building dates back to the 1600s and this work will preserve its heritage by allowing public access. This preservation work will also stabilise the environment certain artefacts and documents are preserved in.
Decision: Reject
History of Congolese Rumba Music
Applicant: Kongolese Children's Association
Project description: To explore the intangible cultural heritage of Congolese Rumba music. This will be done through documenting the influence and impact of Rumba on other music forms in the UK, including Jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. It will also explore the heritage within the wider context of slavery and colonisation to provide an understanding of the music’s role in creating identity and belonging.
Decision: Award grant of £73,839
Reconnecting Cornwall to Nature
Applicant: Kernow Conservation CIC
Project description: To provide information about Cornish wildlife and upskill residents of Cornwall to take a more active role in caring for nature. The project will be delivered through a series of workshops and 20-30 short documentaries, regular blog posts and an evaluation film.
Decision: Reject
Sherborne St John renovations outcomes based
Applicant: Sherborne St John social club
Project description: A renovation project on a social club which was established in 1903. Activity is centred on capital works only, comprising modernisation works, new catering facilities, disabled facilities and eco improvements.
Decision: Reject
Twenty Years of Never Doing the Same Thing Twice: Fuel archive and public engagement projects 2023–2024
Applicant: Fuel Productions Limited
Project description: To celebrate the 20-year anniversary of Fuel Productions Ltd, a theatre company based in Somerset House. The project will focus on cataloguing and digitising the archive of the organisation as well as on collecting oral histories from artists who have collaborated with the company.
Decision: Award grant of £112,251
#DYC Uncovering Geevor's Hidden Heritage
Applicant: Pendeen Community Heritage
Project description: A two-year project from Pendeen Community Heritage, aiming to renovate their archive building and engage community audiences through a programme of training and education activities, alongside a strand of resilience work.
Decision: Reject
Breaking Bread: Companionship
Applicant: Dorset Council
Project description: The applicant is part of an experienced partnership and aims to connect underserved people from ethnic diverse communities in Dorset with natural and cultural heritage. This will be delivered through an audience development plan, recruiting community champions, and delivering a programme of activities and events.
Decision: Award grant of £194,800