News across the Commonwealth

The Sierra Leone National Railway Museum – An African Cultural Gem Helen Ashby OBE and Steve Davies MBE At the east end of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, lies a densely populated industrial suburb called Cline Town.  Few people are aware of the huge importance of Cline Town in the history of the country. […]

Fig. 1   Mundens Battery, dating from 1673 and expanded in 1708, is one of several military installations protecting the harbour of Jamestown. The island of St Helena - situated in the South Atlantic Ocean approximately 2,500 miles east of Brazil and 1,200 miles west of Angola – is the UK’s second largest Overseas Territory.  […]

Bula! Greetings from Fiji Karin Taylor, CHF Trustee writes... It’s four years since I was last in Suva, and, despite the interruptions of a global pandemic and life 10,000 miles away, it suddenly doesn’t seem that long! I’m back with the National Trust of Fiji (NTF) for a month, but also this time representing the Commonwealth […]

The Commonwealth Heritage Forum and City & Guilds of London Art School are pleased to offer Introduction to Global Conservation: Commonwealth Summer School Be inspired by this rare opportunity to learn historic conservation skills in one of the few art schools in Britain still teaching traditional craftsmanship. In the first week, you will learn a […]

Upwards of 40 participants on the Barbados 'Train the Trainer' programme in May 2023 learned practical skills in masonry and plastering and working with lime. Highlights from 2023 We have had an incredibly busy and successful 2023, managing and delivering heritage skills training programmes in Barbados, Antigua, Singapore, Scotland, and Kolkata, along with funding students […]

MA in Traditional Arts  Our Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Commonwealth Heritage Skills Training Programme has funded two full scholarships for Commonwealth students, Yusef Hourani (an artist from Perth, Western Australia) and Nur Fathiah (a calligrapher, born and raised in Singapore) to undertake the MA in Traditional Arts at The King’s Foundation School. The MA is a full-time, two-year, taught […]

'Railways Across the Commonwealth'     Our Autumn lecture series on railways across the Commonwealth finished on 13 December with a brilliant talk from Helen Ashby and Steve Davies on the Sierra Leone railway and National Railway Museum. Thank you to all who joined us online over the course of the series and for your […]

Chinese shop houses and the legacy of a former East India Company settlement, George Town, Penang, Malaysia: fascinating insights from Gwynn Jenkins. The neighbouring houses (pictured above and below) demonstrate cultural change as the settlement in George Town evolved to become part of the World Heritage Site. Both houses would have at one time looked […]

Join our Spring lecture series Cast iron structures across the Commonwealth Wednesday 1 May, 6pm GMT: Andrew Smith, ‘Cast iron in Jamaica’, chaired by Peregrine Bryant Andrew Smith, MA CEng MIStructE. is a structural engineer. Much of his work has been on existing structures, often historic, usually to repair and sometimes to adapt them to […]

Students and professionals at the University of Singapore practise mixing lime under the supervision of Lee Godfrey - Senior Mason Conservator at York Minster Works Department.   With the support of our Commonwealth Heritage Skills Programme between 6–12 April 2023 the National University of Singapore (NUS) hosted heritage skills workshops with teaching from Lee Godfrey and Laura […]

The four Commonwealth bursary students, Daniel Guenther, Su Lin Teh, Shavon Campbell, and Muhd Syahid Tan, join Noel Henry, the Commonwealth tutor, and the Commonwealth Heritage Forum consultant team, outside the earth-building workshop at the Dumfries House estate.  Four students from Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, and Jamaica have recently completed The Prince’s Foundation Summer School at Dumfries House near […]

£12.26 million will be awarded over the next four years to support our Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Commonwealth Heritage Skills Training Programme, the largest single investment in heritage skills in Commonwealth history. The Programme will train more than 3,500 young people in heritage skills in countries where there is little existing capacity to address heritage at […]