Grants

Grants

The generous support of charitable trusts and foundations helps to make many of our projects possible.

Find out how grants enable us to conserve and restore the historic sites in our care, and help more people experience the story of England where it really happened.

As a charity we rely on the support of charitable trusts and foundations to help care for our sites and open them to as many people as possible. Grants enable us to complete vital conservation work, run education and training programmes, make sites more accessible and involve more people in volunteering and events.

Caring for historic places and their collections for the benefit of this and future generations is the cornerstone of everything we do. If you would like to support English Heritage through a grant, we would love to discuss this with you.

We would like to sincerely thank all of our current supporters. Your generosity makes a significant difference to our work.

Celebrating 30 years of the National Lottery

In 2024 the National Lottery celebrates its 30th anniversary. Since the first draw took place on 19 November 1994, more than £49 billion has been raised for good causes.

English Heritage is lucky enough to have been awarded 76 grants totalling £50m.

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Our current projects

If you would like to support a project or learn more about our other appeals not currently listed, please contact us.

Historic and Botanic Garden Trainee Programme

Since 2006, English Heritage has run the Historic and Botanic Garden Trainee Programme (HBGTP) to provide paid traineeships for aspiring horticulturalists in both its own and partner gardens. Trainees gain a rounded skill set and wide practical experience, and 86% of graduates have gone on to higher education or employment in the heritage horticulture sector.

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Belsay Awakes

Belsay Awakes is an ambitious project that will transform visitors' experience while protecting its rich heritage, revitalising its gardens and involving the local community in shaping its future.

We have developed an exciting £5.5 million masterplan to get Belsay back to its best, with support of £1.5m from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. The gardens are being reinvigorated with the help of award-winning garden designer Dan Pearson, The Coach House, which has never been accessible to the public, will be transformed into a welcoming café, the hall roof will be repaired, and we will build an imaginative new woodland play area.

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Past Grant Support

Support from charitable trusts and foundations, and statutory funders, has enabled us to deliver innovative and engaging projects at the sites in our care. Below are just a few example of how our supporters have made a lasting impact.

Rediscovering Walmer Pleasure Grounds

This project restored the lost gardens of Walmer Castle, revealing a hidden period of its history. English Heritage has brought the Pleasure Grounds to life and transformed them into an exciting and inspiring outdoor feature of the Castle. The historic Glen has been opened up for the first time in a century, restored and improved as a hub of community activity.

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Rievaulx Abbey

Rievaulx Abbey was one of England's most powerful Cistercian monasteries. In 2015, new interpretation was introduced across the whole site, including an inspiring new Visitor's Centre and museum to display the abbey's monastic collection.

Support from The Sylvia and Colin Shepherd Charitable Trust, the Sir George Martin Trust and the Tinsley Charitable Trust enabled new interpretation material to be introduced, including a new Family Trail.

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Conscientious Objectors at Richmond Castle

The cell block at Richmond Castle, Yorkshire, contains graffiti left by nearly a century’s worth of inhabitants, the most famous being that left by the absolutest conscientious objectors during the First World War. But the graffiti are fragile – they line the walls of a 19th-century building that wasn’t designed to last.

Thanks to support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we embarked on a major conservation programme to protect the cell block for the future.

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Wrest Park

Wrest Park is one of the few places in the world where you can see the evolution of landscape gardening over the last 300 years. In 2011, a new Sculpture Gallery was formed in the Wrest Park Dairy, made possible by support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

In 2015, The J Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust and The Steel Charitable Trust supported the restoration of the 18th-century North East Great Garden, bringing to life a key part of the magnificent gardens. The site has been transformed, with new walkways, stunning gardens and improved interpretation.

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