Projects & Legacy
We are delighted to announce that the Herbert Baker Heritage Trust has secured funding for the Heritage Craft Skills Training Week 2026. Our thanks go to our funders the Rochester Bridge Trust.
Inspiring future makers
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.
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
