October CWF Round-up: Partnership Enters Phase 3

Press coverage of the Hamish Ogston Foundation-Cathedral Workshop Fellowship Partnership in CWF News, 12 October 2021.

Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln UK. Credit: @matt__feeney

The first post-Covid cohort of CWF Foundation degree students has just enrolled on their new programme. 14 students attended their first Study Workshop in Lincoln for induction and the start of the first module. In addition to meeting their tutors, they had the opportunity to find out what the course is really like from the previous cohort who were also visiting Lincoln that week.

The students, who are all stonemasons, were treated to a close-up look at the 14th century Gallery of Kings on the West Front of the cathedral and the ongoing conservation works to the 12th Century Romanesque Frieze on a tour led by the cathedral architect.

This cohort was recruited during the pandemic and is generously funded through a grant of £700k from the Hamish Ogston Foundation. The Foundation has so far invested £1.2m in the Craft Training partnership project with the CWF and is supporting a total of twenty-five crafts people at various stages of training in 2021-22. A further round of funding from 2022 – 2025 will take the Foundation’s total investment in cathedral crafts skills to £3.1m and secure training places for fifty craft trainees up to 2025. The project is key to maintaining the flow of skilled craftspeople on whom the future of our cathedrals depends.

Apprentice stonemason Elliot Lyster from Gloucester Cathedral commented “for me personally the Hamish Ogston Foundation has given me access to the Gloucester Cathedral building, the wealth of knowledge and experience in the rest of the mason team and the CWF course as well, so it’s invaluable. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of that without this funding”.

Ellie Fells, Digital Communications Officer at Gloucester Cathedral, has created a video showcase the CWF/HOF project. The passion and enthusiasm of our students really shines through!

Visit hamishogstonfoundation.org/heritage/building-heritage-skills for more information on our heritage apprenticeship initiatives.