Roof thatching and rattan furniture making are among 70 'critically endangered' British crafts at risk of dying out

Daily Mail​

13-05-2025

Roof thatching, rattan furniture making and crystal glass cutting are among 70 'critically endangered' British crafts at risk of dying out.
Heritage Crafts has issued the stark warning in its latest 'red list', which is now made up of 165 traditional skills and art forms with a concerning decline in specialists.
This year, 20 more crafts - including forms of basket weaving, carpentry and jewellery making - have been thrown into the list of skills that are at risk of vanishing from the UK.
Rising operational costs, a lack of structured training and mounting market pressures are placing an unsustainable strain of crafts, sparking fears dozens of crafts could disappear within a generation.
Among the 12 additions to the 'critically endangered' category - meaning they are at serious risk of no longer being practised in the UK - are crystal glass cutting, rattan furniture making and Welsh and Irish methods of roof thatching.
They join the list of 71 critically endangered crafts, including glove making, which has been reclassified as being in greater danger than when the research was last updated in 2023.
Crafts added to the 'endangered' list - meaning they have sufficient craftspeople to transfer the skills to the next generation but are at risk in the future - include armour and helmet making, lace making and organ building.
Fortunately, in the last two years, no crafts have become extinct in the UK and some have even been assigned 'resurgent' status - including mouth-blown flat glass which was thought to have been lost last year.
Five of the skills dubbed 'locally extinct' were hand-stitching cricket balls, lacrosse stick making, gold beating and blowing glass sheets.
Dukes Cricket Balls, the last cricket-ball maker in the UK, has stopped manufacturing in the UK over the past decade and now supplies raw materials to India, where the balls are fabricated before returning to Britain to be finished off.
Daniel Carpenter, executive director of Heritage Crafts, warned more investment is needed to preserve traditional skills and prevent them from going extinct.
He said: 'Reversing this decline would represent not just the continuation of skilled trades, but also a significant boost to the UK's cultural heritage and countless opportunities for future innovation.'
Despite the mounting challenges, some traditional skills are making a resurgence.
Elliot Walker, a glass artist who won the Netflix glass-blowing competition Blown Away, is leading the charge in bringing the skill back, producing the first blown-glass sheets in the UK for many years.
The practice disappeared from the country when the Hartley Wood glass factory in Sunderland shut its doors in 1992, having previously made glass for Tiffany and cathedrals around the world.
Elsewhere, rattan furniture weaving has been saved from extinction by interiors company Soane Britain, the only rattan workshop left.
Soane, which Carrie Johnson hired to redecorate Downing Street when her husband Boris was PM, bought out the last workshop when it was plunged into administration and has increased the number of weavers through apprenticeships.
Lulu Lytle, a company founder, told The Times: 'In terms of preserving rattan skills, centuries of development have gone into perfecting the specialist skills needed to make beautiful rattan furniture that will endure for generations, in stark contrast to the abundance of mass-produced rattan which will not last more than a few years.'
She added: 'Only by passing skills on from generation to generation can we maintain a deep understanding of the rattan palm's capabilities and continue to push the boundaries of artisanship and innovate in a way that ensures we have a viable business today.'
The 71 'critically endangered' British crafts
Arrowsmithing
Basketwork furniture making
Bell founding
Bow making (musical)
Bowed felt hat making
Chain making
Clay pipe making
Clog making
Coiled straw basket making
Copper wheel glass engraving
Coppersmithing (objects)
Currach making
Cut crystal glass making (skilled trades & manufacture)
Damask weaving (linen)
Devon stave basket making
Diamond cutting
Encaustic tile making
Engine turned engraving
Fabric Flower Making (skilled trades & manufacture)
Fabric pleating
Fair Isle straw back chair making
Fan making
Figurehead and ship carving
Flute making (concert)
Fore edge painting
Frame knitting
Glass eye making
Glove making
Hand Quilting in a Frame
Hat block making
Hat plaiting
Hazel basket making
Highlands and Islands thatching
Horse collar making
Horsehair weaving
Industrial pottery
Linen Beetling
Maille making
Matte Painting
Metal thread making
Millwrighting
Northern Isles basket making
Orrery making
Paper making (commercial handmade)
Parchment and vellum making
Piano making
Pietra Dura (Pietre Dure)
Plane making
Plume making
Pointe shoe making
Rattan Furniture Making
Saw making
Scientific & optical instrument making
Scissor making
Sieve and riddle making
Silk ribbon making
Silver spinning
Spade making (forged heads)
Spinning wheel making
Sporran making
Straw hat making
Sussex trug making
Swill basket making
Tanning (oak bark)
Tinsmithing
Wainwrighting
Watch dial enamelling
Watch making
Welsh Vernacular Thatching
Whip making (horse)
Wooden fishing net making