Three furniture crafts are critically endangered in the UK, says the Red List

Heritage Crafts publishes the Red List of Endangered Crafts, which rates how likely each traditional craft in the UK is to survive. The latest edition, published in May 2025, puts three furniture crafts in its critically endangered category.

Critically endangered

• Basketwork furniture making
• Fair Isle chair making
• Rattan furniture making

Rattan furniture making is one of 12 crafts added to the critically endangered category in 2025. Horsehair weaving and horse collar making are also critically endangered.

Endangered

• Orkney chair making
• Coach trimming
• Composition picture frame making
• Lacquerwork (lacquer, japanning and coromandel)
• Woodgraining and marbling
• Passementerie

Rated viable

Several of the core furniture trades are rated currently viable and so are not on the Red List itself: chair making, chair seating, upholstery and soft furnishing, French polishing, marquetry, gilding, wood turning, pole lathe turning and wood carving. Heritage Crafts reports that no craft has become extinct in the UK since 2023.

A bursary for a former upholsterer

Among 20 training bursaries Heritage Crafts announced on 29 May 2026 is one for Steve Farrell of Carmarthenshire. After 22 years in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers he turned to bespoke furniture upholstery. His bursary, funded by the Royal British Legion, pays for a part-time foundation course at the Walsall Leather Skills Centre, with tools, leather and travel. Heritage Crafts bursaries provide up to £4,000 each.

Emerging Upholsterer of the Year

The Heritage Crafts Awards include an Emerging Upholsterer of the Year Award worth £1,000. Nominations for 2026 have closed, and the winners' reception is at Goldsmiths' Hall in London on 23 November.