BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON HISTORIC CHURCHES 32nd ANNUAL EDITION 33 CLOSING THE SKILLS GAP How Craft Fellows are learning to create and conserve Scottish stained glass Amy Styles, Aaron Morrison and Gordon Muir FOR 30 years, Historic Environment Scotland (HES) has been at the forefront of safeguarding Scotland’s build heritage through its pioneering Craft Fellowship programme. Launched in 1996, this nationally recognised initiative delivers immersive high-quality work-based training opportunities in traditional building and conservation skills, addressing critical skills shortages and nurturing the next generation of heritage crafts people. Scotland’s traditional buildings (generally including buildings constructed before 1919) make up 18 per cent of the nation’s building stock. These older buildings face increasing threats, with one in three (32 per cent) exhibiting urgent disrepair to critical elements (from Scotland’s Historic Environment Audit 2024). The national strategy Our Past, Our Future and the sector’s Skills Investment Plan both highlight the urgent need for skilled practitioners to conserve, retrofit and maintain these irreplaceable structures. HES’s Craft Fellowship Programme directly responds to this need, offering a robust and flexible training model where accredited skills pathways are currently lacking. Craft Fellows learn hands-on skills while on the job, from traditional joinery and stone carving, to blacksmithing and, as explored here, stained glass making. Over the 30 years, HES has supported 163 training positions by partnering with specialist traditional craft experts and organisations across Scotland, from Orkney to Berwick upon Tweed, to deliver bespoke placements in endangered heritage crafts in response to Heritage Crafts Association’s Red List of Endangered Crafts. HES’s Craft Fellowship programme has been prioritised by HES’s Technical Education and Training team’s annual budget. Over the years it has been funded by a variety of funding streams including The National Lottery, Scottish Government, National Trust for Scotland, William Grant Foundation, and The Vinehill Trust. The project is supported in kind by hosts who give their time and workspace to train Craft Fellows in traditional building skills, and who provide the dayto-day line management required. Craft Fellowships are typically 18 months long and HES aims to recruit six positions each year. Some of our Craft Fellows have gone on to start their own businesses, while others were kept on by companies training them, and in some cases have even gone on to run the businesses where they were based. Aaron Morrison at Rainbow Glass Studio Ltd painting a glass section of a stained glass panel from Maxwelton Chapel, Moniaive, Dumfriesshire (Photo: Historic Environment Scotland) Many Craft Fellows also go on to train others, either in their own studios and workshops, or in further education and training. In the two case studies that follow, Craft Fellows Aaron Morrison and Gordon Muir outline some of the ways they are learning to conserve Scotland’s historic stained glass through the Stained Glass Craft Fellows programme. Each explores the challenges historic stained glass window making is facing, and considers how their efforts are contributing to the preservation of this endangered craft skill.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzI0Mzk=