The 17 crafts at risk of dying out by the next generation

A number of traditional British crafts are critically endangered. Credit: PA / Heritage Crafts

Traditional British trades are at risk of being wiped out forever by the ever-increasing threat of the cost of living crisis, according to research by a heritage charity.

Heritage Crafts says Cornish hedging, straw hat making and marionette making are among the skills at serious risk of dying out by the next generation.

The charity has added five new crafts to its annual 'Red List' of activities on the verge of extinction in the UK. It assessed 259 skills and assigned them to one of four categories: extinct, critically endangered, endangered or currently viable.

Five skills, including straw hat making and encaustic tile making, have been added to the ‘critically endangered’ category of the list for 2023.

They join the list of 146 at-risk crafts, including six that have been reclassified as being in greater danger than when the research was last updated in 2021, such as violin bow making and hat block making.

Straw hat making is one of the skills which has been labelled as endangered. Credit: PA

Often craftspeople cannot afford to step away from production to train young people for fear those markets will disappear. 

Cost pressures also have a devastating impact, leading to one craft becoming extinct in the UK in the last year.

Mouth-blown flat glass was produced by English Antique Glass in Birmingham until 2022, at which point they were forced to stop production as a result of pressures to reduce their workshop space.


The critically endangered crafts list

Here are the skills which are at the greatest risk of being wiped out:

  • Arrowsmithing (added this year) - The forging of metal arrowheads.

  • Bow making (added this year)

  • Chain making

  • Coppersmithing (added this year)

  • Encaustic tile making

  • Hat block making (reclassified from 2021)

  • Plume making

  • Silk ribbon making

  • Straw hat making

  • Sussex trug making (added this year)

  • Whip making (added this year)


Heritage Crafts Co-Chair Jay Blades MBE who is best known from TV series The Repair Shop, said: “When craft skills are in danger of dying out it’s important that we know exactly where to focus our efforts.

Presenter Jay Blades who is Heritage Crafts co-chair. Credit: PA

"Over recent years the Red List of Endangered Crafts has made us realise exactly what we are at risk of losing, and has given our team at Heritage Crafts the information we need to direct our support most effectively.

"As Co-Chair I’m delighted to endorse this 2023 edition as the next step in turning the tide of craft decline.”

For the 2023 edition, 259 crafts have been assessed to identify those which are at greatest risk of disappearing.

Of the 146 crafts featured on the Red List, 62 have been classified as critically endangered and 84 as endangered. The remaining 112 are classed as currently viable.


New endangered crafts

Crafts classified as ‘endangered’ currently have enough craftspeople to pass on the skills to the next generation, but there are serious concerns about their ongoing viability.

This may include crafts with a shrinking market share, an ageing demographic or crafts with a declining number of practitioners.

  • Bicycle frame making (reclassified from 2021)

  • Boat building (traditional wooden boats, reclassified from 2021)

  • Canal art and barge painting

Art for traditional wagons, like this one, is at risk of becoming extinct. Credit: PA
  • Composition picture frame making

  • Cornish hedging

  • Fairground art

  • Gauged brickwork

  • Graining and marbling

  • Hand engraving (reclassified from 2021)

  • Hand hewing

  • Lacquerwork

  • Marionette making

  • Mechanical organ making

  • Pigment making

  • Sgian dubh making

  • Silk weaving

  • Spar making

  • Stained glass window making (historic)

  • Vardo art and living wagon crafts


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