Over £400,000 of funding is available for projects across Scotland, with Historic Environment Scotland (HES) encouraging organisations across the country to apply to their grants and funding schemes which aim to showcase the importance of our heritage assets through projects that promote and protect Scotland’s tangible and intangible historic environment. HES offers grants and funding through its Historic Environment Grants Programme, Partnership Fund and Heritage & Place Programme, last year investing £13.77 million into a range of Scottish heritage projects.
The Historic Environment Grants (HEG) Programme has seen funding secured for a range of projects, such as the National Trust for Scotland’s ‘St Kilda Kirk: The Church on the Edge of the World’. The project aimed to repair the remains of a nineteenth century kirk and schoolroom located on St Kilda, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of natural and cultural significance. An award of over £97,500 in funding allowed the essential conservation work to be carried out using specialist contractors and traditional skills to make the buildings more resilient to the effects of climate change. The conservation of these buildings ensures future generations will continue to benefit from an understanding of the lives and experiences of those who once called St Kilda home.
Scotland’s built environment forms a key part of our towns and cities, contributing to a sense of place and history. With one in five of Scotland’s buildings dating pre-1919, traditional skills play a crucial role as they’re necessary for the conservation of our heritage assets. The HES grant-funded project to repair 9 High Street in Whithorn, carried out by The Whithorn Trust, focusses on training young people in traditional skills and using these to restore and protect the building.
Traditional skills are a prime example of Intangible Cultural Heritage, aspects of our heritage that cannot be seen but that are passed down through generations, such as recipes, songs and crafts. The re-thatching of The Old Thatch, a property on the Isle of Tiree, saw Intangible Cultural Heritage in action. This project was awarded funding to provide urgent repairs to a property on the most westerly of the Inner Hebrides islands, employing the skills of a traditional thatcher who used locally sourced and sustainably harvested materials including local marram grass.
Expressions of interest are now open for the Heritage & Place Programme, an area-based funding programme that aims to contribute to the development of vibrant and sustainable places in Scotland, through community-led regeneration of the historic environment.
Dr Susan O’Connor, Head of Grants at HES, said:
Through our grants and funding schemes, we’re able to support an incredibly wide range of projects that span building conservation, traditional skills education, economic growth for local communities and much more.
“I’d like to encourage communities, organisations and individuals to explore our grants schemes and put forward their projects for consideration. Grants are a vital way to protect our historic environment and conserve it for future generations, helping to showcase that heritage matters to individuals, wider communities and the places we live. This in turn supports local economies, champions traditional skills and reinforces a sense of place rooted in our heritage sites. Heritage is for all, and our goal is to ensure the conservation of that heritage for future generations.”
Julia Muirwatt, Chief Executive at The Whithorn Trust, a past recipient of grant funding said:
The Whithorn Trust was delighted to receive a repair grant from Historic Environment Scotland for their No. 9 High Street project, a building dating from 1765 and roofless for the last 40 years.
“The project is a partnership with our youth training partners, Building Futures Galloway, involving the conservation-standard repair of this small stone-built Georgian property, and represents a major milestone in the training and experience of ten young people employed by the organisation. The building offers the complete gamut of skills at real scale, from foundations to rebuilding complete masonry walls, a hand-hewn roof from local timber, and traditional slater work.
“The funding contribution from HES was a key part of the support package, along with the Heritage Lottery Fund and Dumfries and Galloway Council and has enabled the restoration of a building within our Outstanding Conservation Area. We hope the young people move on from this to larger conservation projects, accumulating evidence for their skills portfolios and accredited learning.”
Join the conversation online about why heritage matters, tag @histenvscot and use the hashtag #heritagematters.
For more information on HES grants and funding schemes, including how to apply, visit historicenvironment.scot/grants-and-funding/our-grants.
About HES Grants Schemes
Historic Environment Scotland offers grants and funding schemes to support projects that promote and protect our historic environment through the Historic Environment Grants Programme, the Partnership Fund and the Heritage & Place Programme.
About St Kilda Kirk: The Church on the Edge of the World
- A project by the National Trust for Scotland
- Recipients of just over £97.5k through the Historic Environment Grants (HEG) Programme
- The project aimed to repair the remains of a kirk and schoolroom from the nineteenth century located on St Kilda, UNESCO World Heritage Site of natural and cultural significance.
- The buildings, which were the only community use buildings on the archipelago and central to the Gaelic speaking community lived there until the 1930s, had suffered due to extreme weather, so were in urgent need of repairs to conserve them.
- The grant awarded allowed the essential conservation work to be carried out, employing traditional skills and ensuring the kirk and schoolroom will continue to be a focal point for visitor, thus looking after the historic environment and protecting and managing sites for future generations.
- A video of the works can be seen on National Trust for Scotland’s YouTube
About No. 9 High Street, Whithorn
- A project by the Whithorn Trust
- Recipients of just under £70k
- The project ensured that repairs were focused on traditional skills whilst striving to restore and protect the building.
- A great example of late Georgian architecture, the 9 High Street site was derelict, roofless and deteriorating.
- Works on the site were carried out to a conservation standard by fourteen trainees aged between 16 to 25, under the supervision of qualified trainers. This not only supplied the trainees with employment and improved the area for the local community, but also promoted knowledge of the historic environment, showcasing the positive impact that preserving our heritage can have across individuals and communities.
- The project ensured the use of as many local and sustainable materials as possible and had trainees attend retrofit training, which was applied to the works carried out, enabling sustainable change in the historic environment and protecting historic environment assets for future generations to enjoy.
About The Old Thatch on the Isle of Tiree
- The re-thatching of The Old Thatch on the Isle of Tiree saw Intangible Cultural Heritage in action, a project undertaken to provide urgent repairs to a property on the most westerly of the Inner Hebrides islands.
- The B-listed property is a rare surviving example of a cottage thatched in the traditional Tiree style, and the grant funding awarded through HES ensured the preservation of a number of details particular to the local area, whilst also employing the skills of a traditional thatcher who used locally sourced and sustainably harvested materials including local marram grass.
About Historic Environment Scotland (HES)
- We are the lead body for Scotland’s historic environment, a charity dedicated to the advancement of heritage, culture, education and environmental protection. It is at the forefront of researching and understanding the historic environment and addressing the impacts of climate change on its future, investigating and recording architectural and archaeological sites and landscapes across Scotland and caring for more than 300 properties of national importance. We are also the lead on delivering Scotland's strategy for the historic environment, Our Past, Our Future.
- Historic Scotland, Scran, Canmore, The National Collection of Aerial Photography (NCAP), The Engine Shed, Stirling Castle, and Edinburgh Castle are sub-brands of HES.
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For further information, please contact:
Julia Woolman
Historic Environment Scotland Media Office
07721 959 962
communications@hes.scot