Bishopsland Launch £2.5M Capital Fundrasing Campaign

The Bishopsland Educational Trust is taking out a 30 year lease on a 7,750sq ft historic Grade II listed derelict building to create a new home for Bishopsland, to develop spacious workshops, dedicated machine/hammering rooms, flexible creative and digital working areas, incubation workshops, offices, meeting facilities and accommodation. The organisation is due to commence activities on site from summer 2024.

The Bishopsland Educational Trust is inviting visionary founding partners, dedicated funders, forwardthinking corporate sponsors and those keen to support emerging makers and silversmithing at all levels to join hands with the organisation to shape a brighter future and protect and preserve professional silversmithing skills. Funders will be pivotal in providing the essential resources needed to develop the site at and secure its future. BET has invested nearly £100k of its own reserves into the project to date.

Bishopsland is incredibly grateful to its anchor funders and partners that include the Goldsmiths’ Company, the Goldsmiths’ Centre, the Clothworkers’ Company, the Radcliffe Trust, the Arts Society, the South Square Trust, Friends of Bishopsland and the myriad of smaller regular donators who make its work possible.

You can support Bishopsland in several ways and you can read more here:

bishopsland.org.uk/a-new-home-for-silversmithing

Angela Cork, Principal of Bishopsland said,

“We are incredibly excited about the future of Bishopsland and moving into our beautiful new home. This is an exciting time for silversmithing. In a changing and evolving market, there are opportunities for growth and potential in international markets. We are confident our partnership with the National Trust will open opportunities for our students and Fellows to reach wider audiences internationally and foster greaterrecognition for British craftsmanship.

We aim to develop Buscot as a leading centre for silversmithing, working with our partners across industry to create a place where aspiring makers can not only train to become a silversmith but learn the key business skills to forge a career either as a self-employed or employed maker. As a small organisation, we will be well placed in our new home to pivot quickly to help meet industry’s needs while providing a space where the wider industry can feel at home. In our new meeting rooms, we will hold industry seminars and master classes and ensure we are stimulating professional practice across the UK whilst speaking up for, and working with, the industry as a whole.

We have been overwhelmed with the positive support to our new home. I have been inundated with pledges of support from Friends and Fellows, ranging from financial donations to pieces to auction. It is a really heart-warming example of the industry helping the industry.’

Christian Walker, General Manager Buscot & Coleshill Estates,

“Bishopsland’s focus on teaching the traditional heritage skills of a master silversmith adds a dynamic new string to the work of the National Trust’s Heritage and Rural Skills Centre at Coleshill and builds on the estate’s rich past as a creative hub inspiring creativity alongside tradition”.

Howard Dellar, Chair of Trustees Bishopsland Educational Trust, “

We are delighted to be working with the National Trust and Buscot and Coleshill Estates and to have found a beautiful, flexible, adaptable location for our workshops, offices, incubation spaces, Tools Library and students. Working alongside other heritage and skills organisations on the estate was a major factor in our selection of the site. By entering this agreement with the National Trust, we are securing the future of our programme of professional craft skills training”.

Bishopsland Educational Trust is an internationally recognised charity dedicated to the training and education of emerging makers in the heritage craft of silversmithing. It is a residential organisation that mixes workshop space with accommodation to train silversmiths. A long standing charity with a proven 30 year track record, BET has mentored and trained emerging silversmiths, creating opportunities for them to connect and learn from one another and establish networks of skilled craftspeople across the UK and beyond.

Bishopsland recognises the importance of professional hand and traditional craft skills, reduction of barriers to entry to education for individuals more inclined towards vocational and practical career routes regardless of academic ability or means.

The organisation links strategically with the decision announced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for UK ratification of the 2003 UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, led by the Heritage Crafts Association. This will open the way to greater international cooperation on the importance of the UK’s knowledge, skills and practices as part of our living heritage and help address crafts on the HCA Red List.

The Buscot & Coleshill Estate has established a centre that supports professional heritage skills by providing awareness, courses, facilities and workshops to deliver the vision of a creative estate. This is routed in the estate’s creative and innovative past whilst looking to champion skills for the future.