Projects & Legacy
Our 2026 Heritage Craft Skills Training Week
Students at Chatham Historic Dockyard
In April 2026, the Herbert Baker Heritage Trust delivered its inaugural Heritage Craft Skills Training Week, offering students from Kent an introduction to the conservation of historic buildings and traditional craft skills. Over five days, 95 participants visited some of the county’s most significant heritage sites, meeting the professionals responsible for their care and gaining valuable hands-on experience in a range of heritage crafts skills.
At Canterbury Cathedral, the team at the Stonemasons’ Yard led the first day of training. Students were given the rare opportunity to visit the drawing office, meet the estates team and explore the Bastion Chapel (which Baker restored in the 1920s). This was followed by a visit up on to the Corona Tower roof, and a practical stone masonry workshop where they got hands on with the materials.
On the second day, students travelled to Rochester Bridge and Rochester Cathedral to explore historic building materials, civil engineering and conservation practice. Sessions focused on the challenges of maintaining and preserving important historic structures while balancing modern day use and ideas around sustainability.
Day three took place at the Building Crafts College, one of the UK’s leading providers of specialist construction craft education. Students learned more about training opportunities in traditional building crafts and discussed apprenticeships and career pathways. The chance to speak to current students and recent graduates made these opportunities very real and clear to the participants.
Hands-on workshops at Canterbury Cathedral Stonemasons’ Yard
Traditional stool making at the Furniture Craft School, Scotney Castle Estate
The fourth day was hosted by the Furniture Craft School in the grounds of Scotney Castle. Students spent the day in the workshop learning traditional furniture-making techniques, using unfamiliar tools and creating a traditional milking stool which they were able to take home.
The training week concluded with a visit to The Historic Dockyard Chatham. Students met heritage professionals responsible for the care of the site’s many listed buildings, and gained practical experience in the historic ropery. They were toured around the recent restoration work on Commissioners House by the expert in charge, and discussed first hand the reality of heritage career opportunities.
The week provided students with an inspiring introduction to heritage conservation and traditional craft skills, in particular highlighting the ways in to the sector and the wide range of heritage career opportunities available.
Sir Herbert Baker’s archives at RIBA Collections
During the 1980s and 90s, Michael Baker donated drawings, photographs and paper based archives from the office of his grandfather, Sir Herbert Baker, to RIBA. The collection included thousands of items, not only documenting the commissions that Baker’s architectural office completed but also collaborations with artists, craftsmen, building professionals and patrons, alike. In 2022, Baker’s personal papers joined the collection, through a further family donation, and are now accessible to the public.
In 2025, RIBA Collections kindly agreed to share 168 digital copies of Baker’s photographic collection, now in their ownership, with the Herbert Baker Heritage Trust. The HBHT are delighted to be able to use images from the collection, that document so many of Baker’s iconic, and lesser known, commissions and help encourage access to this rich archive.
Our thanks go to the team at RIBA for their support.
Image Credits - RIBA Collections. RIBA gratefully acknowledges the donation of the Sir Herbert Baker archive by the Baker family.
Our 2025 Heritage Skills Pilot programme was a great success. We invited students from Medway to explore local heritage sites and try their hand at traditional crafts — from timber frame woodwork to stone masonry.
It was wonderful to offer this hands-on experience and inspire students by giving them an insight into the world of skilled heritage trades.
We’re incredibly grateful for the ongoing support of our partners: Rochester Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral, Medway Council, and Mid Kent and North Kent Colleges.
Inspiring future makers
Watch our short film to see the programme in action
New research in to Baker’s building conservation legacy
In September 2025 postgraduate researcher Tatum Goins began the first PhD dedicated to exploring Sir Herbert Baker’s building conservation legacy. The Collaborative Doctorate Award, based at University of York and funded by the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities, will examine some of Baker’s lesser-known conservation projects. The research will consider how Baker approached the challenge of safeguarding historic buildings for future generations.
By assessing these buildings nearly a century on, Tatum’s research will offer new insight into Baker’s long-term impact on conservation practice and the relevance of his methods today.
Tatum Goins researching Baker’s drawings at the RIBA collection
with Fiona Orsini, Curator, Drawings and Archives Collections
A shared commitment to heritage craft skills
Canterbury Cathedral
The Cathedral Workshop Fellowship - a partnership of fourteen Anglican cathedrals - has become the Trust’s asset lock, ensuring that our long-term charitable objectives remain protected. Both organisations are dedicated to sustaining traditional heritage craft skills through training opportunities and practical experience.
Sir Herbert Baker’s passion for preserving Britain’s rich ecclesiastical heritage makes the Fellowship a natural partner for the Trust. Together, we look forward to developing shared projects and expanding training opportunities that will support the next generation of skilled craftspeople.
Baker's Commonwealth War Graves Commission Legacy
In September 2025 the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the Herbert Baker Heritage Trust launched a partnership to explore Sir Herbert Baker’s lasting contribution to the former Imperial War Graves Commission, where he served as one of three Principal Architects.
Baker worked on 112 war cemeteries and memorials, helping to shape the Commission’s enduring architectural style of dignity and remembrance. He is perhaps best known for the Tyne Cot Cemetery and the Indian Memorial to the Missing at Neuve-Chapelle, which remain among the CWGC’s most visited and powerful places of commemoration.
Tyne Cot Cemetery, Belgium, designed by Herbert Baker, 1927
Sir Herbert Baker:
Champion of Arts and Crafts
In February 2025 our founder, Camilla Baker, was invited to speak at Downing College, Cambridge, as part of a seminar series hosted by the Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture .
Camilla delivered an engaging overview of Baker’s prolific career, reflecting on the remarkable breadth and variety of buildings he designed throughout his 50 years in practice. She shared personal insights into her early education in architecture, shaped by growing up at Owletts, the Baker’s family home in Kent, which in 1937 was bequeathed to the National Trust.
We are very grateful to the CSCA for their kind invitation and for hosting such a thoughtful and stimulating series.
Watch a talk about Herbert Baker’s legacy
Honouring Baker’s legacy
Sir Herbert Baker was not only a visionary architect, he was a passionate champion of craftsmanship. He believed in the importance of passing on skills to future generations, and saw the value in preserving history while giving it new purpose.
At the Herbert Baker Heritage Trust we honour this ethos by exploring the rich legacy of Baker and his collaborators, and by supporting initiatives that nurture creativity, craft, and heritage today.
Union Buildings, Pretoria, South Africa, H. Baker;
watercolour H.L.G. Pilkington, 1909
With thanks to our supporters
