UNESCO British Inventories of Living Heritage, 2026
Hand quilting in the frame as cultural heritage in the UK.
What is the Inventory of Living Heritage?
In 2025 Within the Frame convened the wider quilting heritage and practitioner community to successfully have the historical practice of hand quilting in the frame recognised and listed as a Critically Endangered skill in Britain. The next stage is to have the Living Heritage of the practice internationally recognised on the global UNESCO inventory as culturally specific in the British regions where it thrived.
In 2024, the UK government joined many countries in supporting the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The Convention looks at Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) or living heritage, which is cultural heritage that is living and practised. Examples of living heritage in the UK range from bell-ringing to boat-building etc.
As part of this the UK Government is setting up Inventories of Living Heritage in the UK. There are four separate inventories for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and these will combine into one inventory of Living Heritage in the UK. These inventories will be formed through consultation. The inventories include listings for the categories of oral expression, performing arts, social practices, nature, land and spirituality, craft, sports and games, culinary practices. We have submitted the practice of hand quilting at the frame in friend, family and neighbourly community groups within the categories of craft, social practices and nature, land and spirituality.
The UK government have appointed Community Support Hubs, and Heritage Crafts and Amgueddfa Cymru (appointed hubs) have asked Within the Frame to lead the communities contribution to this application as it appertains to hand quilting, and so we are reaching out to our collaborative community to help us to do this. Being listed in this inventory might help communities to build international co-operation and assistance, and secure safeguarding and raised awareness of the practice in the future.
What we need from you
UNESCO state that living heritage should be recognised as such by the communities, groups or individuals that create, maintain and transmit it. It is therefore important that the element is being put forward by or on behalf of the community of practice and that the community has given its free, prior and informed consent for the living heritage to be submitted. One of the criteria for inclusion on the inventories is that submitters “must have obtained free, prior and informed consent from the community.”
Within the Frame have been tasked by Amgueddfa Cymru to coordinate the application for hand quilting in a frame on behalf of its important cultural heritage in Wales, but also across the UK. We are therefore reaching out to other organisations across Britain whose heritage and cultural work supports this quilting history, and directly to individual practitioners through Guilds and groups as well as our own interlocutor database to let the wider community know that we are engaging with this national process.
We need you to give us ‘free, prior and informed consent’ for this. This can be given formally or informally and might be in the form of an e mail reply from a curator or executive, a minuted motion at a Guild or group meeting or by individuals completing our feedback link at Within the Frame here or completing the form below.
What happens next?
The first stage is the submission of an Expression of Interest which we have formally made. We have been invited to now complete a full application, a process similar to that we undertook for Heritage Crafts Red List application, and which will also be open to wider community input.
More information about this nationwide governmental process can be accessed at https://livingheritage.unesco.org.uk.
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