In Celebration of National Apprenticeships Week 2023: A Look Back at Our Past Year Supporting Apprentices and Trainees in Heritage Conservation

The Hamish Ogston Foundation is now committed to funding over 550 apprenticeships and traineeships in the heritage sector, making us the largest single donor to rebuilding heritage conservation skills in the UK. Here, in celebration of National Apprenticeships Week 2023, we will take a look back at some of the highlights of the past year, for our apprentice and trainee heritage workers, and the buildings they are helping to preserve.

-

March 2022

Students of the Cathedrals’ Workshop Fellowship Celebrate a Long-Delayed Graduation

[Cathedrals’ Workshop Fellowship]

In March 2022, the ‘Covid Cohort’ of heritage conservation trainees under the Cathedral’s Workshop Fellowship celebrated their long-delayed graduation in a ceremony at Worcester Cathedral. This ‘Class of 22’ suffered numerous delays over the course of their studies, most significantly when both instructors and students on the scheme were furloughed for 6 months at the height of the pandemic.

This was when the Hamish Ogston Foundation stepped in, with a ‘COVID Emergency Grant’ of £535,000, to help the programme adapt courses for online delivery and help the Cathedrals and their conservation staff stay afloat. Contributions by the Foundation to the programme have continued since then, with the amount pledged to date some £3.5million.

-

May 2022

The Launch of the Largest Commonwealth Heritage Conservation Project in History

[Pictured left to right: Lord James Crathorne, our Founder, Hamish Ogston, and Philip Davies, CE of the Commonwealth Heritage Forum]

The shortage of skilled heritage workers is not a problem faced only by the UK; buildings across the globe are at-risk of irreparable atrophy if nothing is done to increase the capacity of our heritage conservation workforce, the world over.

We were honoured to be granted the rare accolade of naming one of our heritage conservation programmes after Her Late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, and we were more honoured still to be able to launch this, the largest Commonwealth heritage conservation programme in history, at the Commonwealth Secretariat in May 2022.The £4.5million in grant funding the Foundation has put behind The Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Commonwealth Heritage Skills Training Programme will train up to 600 people over a period of five years in a targeted range of projects, helping to secure the future of threatened buildings across the Commonwealth.

-

June 2022

£6.2m Apprenticeship Scheme Announced with the National Trust

[National Trust]

Our 4th major heritage skills training programme was announced in June of last year. £6.2million will fund the training of 52 early-career stonemasons, carpenters and joiners, as they earn-whilst-they-learn, performing crucial restorative works on historic buildings managed by the National Trust across the UK under the instruction of expert stonemasons, carpenters and joiners.

The first cohort of apprentices for the Hamish Ogston Foundation Heritage Crafts Apprenticeship Programme, 5 stonemasons and 2 carpenters and joiners, began their training this month at 5 National Trust locations from the Cotehele House estate down in Cornwall to Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire.

-

August 2022

The Hamish Ogston Foundation and Historic England Welcome Trainees to Traditional Crafts Summer School at Wentworth Woodhouse

As part of the Hamish Ogston Foundation’s Heritage Building Skills Programme, 19 apprentices were welcomed to Wentworth Woodhouse for the Traditional Crafts Summer School. Under this project, managed by Historic England, trainees carried out crucial restorative work to the Grade 2 listed Camelia House and Ionic Temple, which were both at imminent risk of falling into irreparable disrepair.

The Heritage Building Skills Programme is a five-year in-work and training programme running until 2026 and is backed with a £4.3million pledge from the Foundation, supporting the training of up to 40 trainees and apprentices across the North of England and regenerating many historic buildings across the North, like Wentworth Woodhouse, for the benefit of local communities.

-

October 2022

Hamish Ogston Foundation Trainees Travel to Hyderabad for Crucial Works at the Telangana Mahila Viswavidyalayam

[Commonwealth Heritage Forum]

In October the first of 20 projects to be undertaken by the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Commonwealth Heritage Skills Training Programme got underway, as 6 UK-based trainees travelled to Hyderabad to complete crucial restorative works at the Telangana Mahila Viswavidyalayam and study theories and practical methods for heritage conservation from local experts.

The trainees, a mixture of UK-based conservation, architecture and construction professionals, worked alongside Hyderabad-based heritage trainees, also funded by the Hamish Ogston Foundation. The trainees undertook works on the central mall, south portico and 3 historic gates on the grounds of the former British Residency. Whilst working on the historic building and grounds, trainees not only developed their hands-on skills in heritage conservation, learning to safely remove plaster, slake lime and repair structures on each of the gates without compromising structural integrity, all from local experts.

-

November 2022

Westminster Abbey Joins the Cathedrals’ Workshop Fellowship

[Wikimedia]

In November, the Cathedrals’ Workshop Fellowship welcomed its newest member to its group: Westminster Abbey. One of the most famous religious buildings in the world, serving an important role in British political, social and cultural life for more than 1,000 years, the Abbey joins as the 11th member of the Fellowship. A member of the Abbey’s Clerk of the Works team will join the next cohort on the CWF Foundation degree course as a student; they will acquire the knowledge and develop the skills needed to care for this hugely significant building, which, in September 2022, played host to the late Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral.

-

December 2022

Newest Cohort of Apprentices join the Foundation’s Heritage Building Skills Programme

[Historic England]

The second cohort of apprentice heritage stonemasons, carpenters, decorators and plasterers on the Hamish Ogston Foundation Heritage Building Skills Programme were officially inducted at an event held at the famous City Varieties Music Hall in December of last year. The apprentices, three plasterers, two stonemasons, a carpenter joiner and a painter decorator, were inducted on their apprenticeship at the famous building in Leeds and taken on a tour of the great northern city’s at-risk heritage sites, including the former flax mill in Holbeck, Temple Works.

-

January 2023

Heritage Skills Training Programme completes restoration of former British residency in India

[World Monuments Fund]

A grand ceremony was held to celebrate 20 years of work by heritage conservation workers at the Telangana Mahila Viswavidyalayam on January 14th. This work, completed by trainees and experts funded by the Hamish Ogston Foundation, has restored a building which had been marked by the World Monuments Fund in 2002 on its ‘Watch List’ as one of unique cultural importance and one at serious risk of falling into permanent disrepair.

The restoration of this building, a former colonial residency and now part of the local women’s university, by heritage conservation trainees from both the UK and India, is a great example of how the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Commonwealth Heritage Skills Training Programme – named after Her Late Majesty and in observation of her 70 years of service to the Commonwealth of Nations – aims to support projects of a certain nature: projects which regenerate, repurpose and celebrate the shared culture of Commonwealth member nations for the benefit of local communities for generations to come.

-

We recognise that many of the world’s great and treasured heritage sites are in urgent need of restorative works if they are to survive the rigours of the 21st century, and that many more soon will be if more action is not taken. What’s more we understand that these important and unique parts of our built cultural heritage will only survive if the supply of skilled labour needed to look after them is assured. This is not just a matter of money, but also of forward planning.

This is why we partner with some of the world’s best-known heritage organisations, some of which are listed above, to help protect heritage sites by funding apprenticeships and traineeships in heritage conservation. The Foundation has now committed some £25million to heritage skills training, supporting over 550 apprenticeships and traineeships across 4 continents.

-

To read more about our Heritage initiatives, visit: https://bit.ly/3XQnsBD