Everyday Heritage case studies
Examples of projects we funded in the first round of Everyday Heritage Grants.
We are launching a new round of our grant opportunity 'Everyday Heritage Grants: Celebrating Working Class Histories'.
Building on the success of our first round of Everyday Heritage Grants in 2022, we continue to be interested in funding projects that celebrate working class histories and the historic places that make up everyday life.
The grants are for creative projects that focus on heritage connecting people to historic places, specifically those people and places that are overlooked or underrepresented.
We will accept proposals for projects with costs of up to £25,000 but we are keen to fund a number of smaller projects up to £10,000.
All organisations and individuals can apply, including community interest groups, charities, and local authorities. We are especially interested in applications from groups and individuals that are not heritage organisations but can deliver heritage projects. While we are willing to fund proposals with links to established heritage institutions, we are especially interested in funding community-led projects.
Proposals must be submitted by 11.59pm, Monday 7 October 2024.
On this page you will find:
The ways we mark and recognise the past in our public spaces are a powerful and emotive tool for understanding and interpreting history, but not everyone’s stories are told and not everyone’s history is remembered.
The Everyday Heritage Grant projects will help us to further our collective understanding of the past. They are designed to build on Historic England’s commitment to inclusion, diversity, and equality of opportunity in all our work. You can find out more in our Strategy for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equality.
The grants are for projects that focus on heritage connecting people to historic places, specifically those people and places that are overlooked or underrepresented.
Building on the success of our first round of Everyday Heritage Grants in 2022, and our second round in 2023, we continue to be interested in projects that celebrate working class histories and the historic places that make up everyday life.
In the previous rounds of Everyday Heritage Grants, the majority of the applications we received, and the projects we funded were based in large urban areas.
To address this, in the third round, we will only be funding projects about buildings and places in rural and coastal locations.
For rural locations, the building or place must be in a location with fewer than approximately 10,000 people living there.
Locations might include hamlets and isolated dwellings, villages, small towns, farmland, and unfarmed landscapes such as moorland.
For coastal locations, the building or place must be within approximately 1 kilometre of a coastline.
By building or place, we mean:
We do not want to fund projects that:
The buildings or places do not need to be listed for applications to be eligible for a grant. By listed, we mean any building or place which is protected, either by Historic England, or on a local list.
We want to fund projects that recognise and/or celebrate:
The projects must:
✔ Grant recipients must co-create the work with relevant communities; we value the process as much as the outcome
✔ The product and the process must have accessibility at their core, applications should demonstrate consideration of disabilities and other barriers to access
The outputs or products of the project should be decided with the community you co-create the project with. In previous rounds, Everyday Heritage Grants project outputs have included: murals and public artworks, oral history collections, documentaries and films, musicals and songs, poetry and other written responses, community gardens, skills-building workshops.
In addition to any outputs your co-creators might decide on, we will also require:
As a result of the Everyday Heritage projects:
✔ All organisations are eligible to apply including community interest groups, charities, and local authorities. Individuals can apply if they are registered as sole traders.
✔ We are especially interested in applications from groups and individuals that are not heritage organisations but can deliver heritage projects. While we are willing to fund proposals with links to established heritage institutions, we are especially interested in funding community-led projects.
✔ We are particularly interested in supporting projects that represent diverse and minority ethnic communities, LGBTQ+ people and disabled and neurodiverse people.
✔ We will consider applications from previous Everyday Heritage Grants recipients, providing the project is not an extension or continuation of the previously funded project. Applicants will need to work on a new project, celebrating a different story and place, ideally with different outcomes or approaches.
✔ Previous unsuccessful applicants are also welcome to apply but projects will need to take into account the changes to the criteria for this round.
x Please note these grants are not designed to fund reinterpretation of museum collections, but rather are to fund projects to uncover people’s stories in relation to buildings or places. The buildings or places do not need to be listed for applications to be eligible for a grant. By listed, we mean any building or place which is protected, either by Historic England or on a local list.
x These grants are not for capital work – by capital work, we mean construction, modifications, or renovations to the structure of a building or place
x We will not fund any projects where the only outcome is a book or other printed publication.
Use this checklist to ensure your project is eligible.
- Does your project relate to working class histories?
- Does your project have a strong connection to place?
- Is your project based on a building or place in a rural or coastal location?
- Will your project cost up to £25,000? Please note we are also looking to fund several smaller projects under £10,000.
- Does your project centre around co-creation?
- Does your project take into consideration barriers to access and how to overcome these?
- Will your project have a positive impact on participants?
Please note:
Grants will be administered via standard Historic England grant funding agreements. If you are a sole trader, rather than a limited company, association or partnership, you will need to complete an Employment Status Questionnaire (a requirement of Historic England by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) and provide confirmation from HMRC of your registered self-employed status.
All applicants funded by Historic England must be IR35 compliant. This means that contractors should be able to demonstrate that the correct tax is paid and that National Insurance Contributions are attributed correctly.
Should your proposal be successful, it is Historic England’s standard anti-fraud procedure to ask any new payee to provide us with confirmation of the bank details that funds are to be paid into on a document issued by the bank, such as a paying-in slip or a bank statement with any sensitive information redacted.
Assessment criteria for proposals will be based on:
* you can submit your application form and budget spreadsheet (we will not be accepting any additional supporting documents) in the following formats:
Please note we are not able to open Mac format files, please use an open office format.
We are happy to make reasonable adjustments to make the application process as accessible as possible. If you would like to explore alternative ways to apply, please email [email protected]
Proposals must be submitted by 11.59pm, Monday 7 October 2024.
Applicants will be informed of the decision in November 2024.
Projects can start as soon as a contract has been signed and should aim to be complete by 31 July 2026. Please note, the project does not need to run for the full duration, you may want to start later and/or end sooner.
Friday 16 August 2024: Launch of Everyday Heritage Grants
11.59pm, Monday 7 October 2024: Closing date – all proposals need to be submitted by this date and time
November 2024: Successful applicants notified, comments and revisions to applications requested if necessary
November 2024: Unsuccessful applicants notified – please note we won’t be able to give feedback due to the anticipated volume of applications
Late January 2025: Announcement of successful projects
January 2025 – July 2026: Project delivery
Through these grants we want local and diverse communities to have opportunities to connect with others, to tell stories relating to their places in their own ways, and to be involved throughout the projects.
We know from feedback from previous rounds of Everyday Heritage Grants, that many applicants underestimate the time and effort required to ensure strong buy-in, support, and engagement with communities, so please be realistic and allow time and resources for doing this, especially if it’s not a group you already have a strong relationship with.
When we talk about co-creation, we mean:
We do not mean:
At Historic England, Active Participation is our strategic approach toward working together with more people, and a more diverse range of people, to take action in support of the historic environment.
We are approaching these grants with the following values:
There are many reasons why communities, especially those who are underrepresented in heritage, do not engage or get involved with heritage projects.
These might include:
In your application, you will need to demonstrate that you have considered what the potential barriers might be for people to get involved with your project. You don’t need to address all of the above, and we will definitely have missed examples, so just identify the barriers that may apply to your project and explain how you aim to overcome those to ensure as many people as possible can get involved.
In previous rounds of the Everyday Heritage grants, the most successful projects have aimed to address very specific barriers faced by the community they are co-creating with, rather than trying to address all of them.
We want these grants to have benefits for people as well as places. This might include learning new skills, developing social connections, or it could be that the project will positively impact on people’s wellbeing or physical/mental health.
You should base your intended outcomes for participants on the following:
Read Historic England’s Wellbeing and Heritage Strategy
You can find out about local wellbeing and health needs using public health data and other sources of data about health inequalities, you might want to look at:
You could work with local health, VCFSE (voluntary, community, faith, or social enterprise organisations), and local authority partners, who will have local health data and will be able to help you to identify, understand and address local needs.
You should think about how your project will capture the impact on people’s wellbeing and/or health as a result of their involvement.
For questions about the project including the application process and deadlines please get in touch by emailing:
Due to the anticipated volume of interest in these grant opportunities, we are unable to take phone calls. Please don’t get in touch with regional offices or customer services, you will get a quicker response if you contact us using the above email address.
You can find the budget spreadsheet here.
The first sheet of the document is a blank spreadsheet to be completed, the second sheet gives an example of a completed spreadsheet, key definitions, and frequently asked questions.
Please do not change the formulas in the spreadsheet.
As part of the reporting process, we ask recipients to outline any learnings, feedback or recommendations from their experience. Below we have compiled the ten most common tips from previous rounds of Everyday Heritage Grants:
Historic England will provide some simple surveys and guidance to successful recipients. We will ask recipients to survey their participants at the beginning and the end of the project. The recipient’s role will just be to gather data. Historic England staff will be available to advise and support this data gathering. This is intended to be light touch and not burdensome on you or your projects.
You may wish to do your own evaluation of your project too, and might consider allocating time and budget for this. In your task list, and on the budget spreadsheet, please allow one day to support us with evaluation, and include any other evaluation you may want to conduct yourself.
We ask that you share the news of your project and our funding with people and key stakeholders whenever you can. We encourage grant recipients to publicise their projects by reaching out to the media, promoting on social media (e.g., Twitter/X, Facebook), and contacting your local MP.
We will provide recipients with access to a toolkit for acknowledging the grant.
We encourage you to do this both during your project and after to celebrate what you have achieved.
Historic England will provide a Communications Toolkit, designed to help you achieve creative and effective publicity for your project.
Please note
The Historic England Media Team will be making a public announcement about the organisations that are successful in receiving grant funding. If you are offered funding and plan to share the news externally about your grant, please do not do so before this Historic England announcement. We will let you know about dates and plans so that we can coordinate, and cross promote.
Grants will be administered by the Historic England Grants Team. Project Assurance and routine monitoring of standards, progress, and expenditure will be undertaken by a Historic England Project Assurance Officer (PAO) who will also provide you with guidance throughout the project, but applicants should note the PAO will not manage the project. All proposals should include a named individual, such as the project manager, who is ultimately responsible for the delivery of your project.
You will be expected to produce highlight/progress/risk reports at appropriate points throughout your project as detailed in your agreement. How often you submit these reports will be decided depending on the length and value of your project. We will also expect you to keep accurate financial records of your spend against the budget and to submit a report at the end of the project which includes evaluation and lessons learnt.
Ownership and copyright of project outputs will rest with you; however, Historic England will be granted an in perpetuity, royalty-free licence to use or sub-licence project outputs. Terms of licencing will be agreed in your contract agreement, and are expected to cover a range of uses including:
Model release forms will be required for anyone taking part in video, audio recordings, or photography in line with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Forms can be supplied by Historic England and should be completed and submitted with all final project outputs.
Please note, this section is just for information. We do not expect you to address each of these areas in your application.
As well as directly aligning with our statutory remit to promote the public’s enjoyment of, and advance their knowledge of, heritage and the historic environment, these grants will help to support our Inclusion, Diversity, and Equality Strategy. This includes our priority outcome of: ‘A greater diversity of people engage with the historic environment through the work we do and the programmes and organisations we fund’ and our ambition: ‘People from every community will be able to see their own culture and heritage represented in the work of Historic England and feel that the historic environment is relevant to them.’
This work also supports Historic England’s Wellbeing and Heritage Strategy, Future Strategy, and Corporate Plan and will deliver against all three of the Future Strategy focus areas: Thriving Places, Connected Communities, and Active Participation.
Historic England has adopted a Public Value Framework (PVF) to assure its stakeholders, including the public, that it invests public money in ways that give the most value. Historic England's Public Value Framework is based on the 2017 report ‘Delivering better outcomes for citizens: practical steps for unlocking public value’ (Barber, Nov 2017). All projects will need to deliver public value.
LGBT+ Northern Social Group (NSG) defines drag as performance that explores, plays with, or challenges traditional presentations, expressions of, and ideas about, gender.
This project will look at the working class history of drag in the “Pink Triangle”, also known as the Gay Village area of Newcastle. Framing drag as a folk art with roots in Musical Hall “dandy”/ “fop” performers and 20th-century drag in working men’s clubs, up to the contemporary DIY drag scene.
The volunteer-led LGBTQIA+ NSG group includes around 2,600 members from the North East of England. It will promote and coordinate community workshops to encourage members to conduct personal research and creative activities building towards outcomes including online and in-person elements, such as an online exhibition and live drag performances.
Exploring the former site and surroundings of the legendary Quadrant Park nightclub, Queue Up And Dance aims to uncover the histories of working class life, labour and leisure in Bootle in the 1980s and 1990s.
The club was demolished in 1992, and with nothing at the site hinting at its history, the legacy of Quadrant Park is in danger of being lost.
Rule of Threes Arts is a locally-rooted arts organisation that supports communities in making creative projects about what matters to them. Working in partnership with Sefton Libraries and artists Dave Evans and Melissa Kains, the project brings together those who frequented the club in the 1980s and 1990s, and young people living in Bootle today, creating intergenerational links and engaging people in Bootle’s local heritage.
The project will share their discoveries online, in an exhibition, and through an event that will be a key moment in Sefton’s Borough of Culture 2025.
To celebrate the 70-year history of the Leicester Caribbean Cricket and Social Club, this project aims to create an interactive walking trail with up to 10 plaques placed at sites around the city significant to the club.
QR codes on the plaques will link to filmed oral history videos on a newly developed website alongside historical images and interview transcripts.
A local historian familiar with the Caribbean community will conduct interviews with long-time club members to create short-form videos focused on themes like founding stories, sporting triumphs, community events, and personal memories. These plaques will appear at locations like the longstanding clubhouse on Ethel Road.
Members' stories will spotlight how the club nurtured Caribbean fellowship and activism from its founding in 1957 to today.
This project will preserve the living heritage of this important community institution and make it accessible through interactive technology. Club members, especially younger members, will feel pride in their legacy and the wider Leicester community will gain insight into Caribbean and South Asian experiences and the club's role in building cross-cultural bonds.
Cardboard City – a makeshift encampment made from hundreds of cardboard boxes in the underpasses between Waterloo Station and the South Bank – sheltered thousands of rough sleepers over the course of around 20 years in the 1980s/’90s.
As public consciousness of Cardboard City begins to fade, and many of those who lived there are in poor health or have since died, St John's Waterloo and The Bridge At Waterloo are working to remember and memorialise this history and the ephemeral and neglected heritage of homeless people in the area.
Led by artists and people who have experienced homelessness, this project will sensitively engage with individuals who lived in Cardboard City, those who provided support to its inhabitants, and local residents. Participants will shape the outcomes of the project which will involve research and documentation of narratives, individuals, and objects linked to Cardboard City.
This project is centred around the co-creation of a touring exhibition that tells the story of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities living in Greensand Country, in Central Bedfordshire.
Full House is a child-focused charity and arts organisation that is based in the heart of Greensand Country. The year-long project will take place on three local sites, where children and families from GRT communities will be creating content alongside visiting artists, forming a body of work to be shared with the public.
Listening to the voices of communities is at the centre of Full House’s co-creation process and in the early stages of the process they will spend time with GRT families to identify artists they would like to collaborate with. This will be an important part of developing effective creative partnerships so that communities can share the stories they want to tell.
The final output will be an exhibition, co-created and curated with participants, that will tour three local libraries.
Revealing the stories of those who worked at the C&T Harris Bacon Factory, this project will work with former employees to create an archive of oral history exploring the work, life and friendships of these factory workers.
Operating for over 200 years, the C&T Harris Bacon Factory opened in the 1770s and was demolished in the 1980s. The project will be led by Yesterday’s Story, supported by the volunteers of Calne Heritage Centre and archived at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre.
Volunteers will collect oral histories from the former workers and present them to the local community in an accessible way. Despite the factory no longer existing, it was a huge part of Calne’s identity and is still renowned today. Yesterday’s Story wants to capture the history of those who worked at the factory before their stories are lost forever.
Examples of projects we funded in the first round of Everyday Heritage Grants.
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