Preserving Heritage, Celebrating The Next Generation
On a November evening at Wentworth Woodhouse, Maisie Hill stood on stage to receive the Emerging Leatherworker of the Year award. Eighteen months earlier, she had joined Silverlining as a trainee with no leatherworking experience. Now Heritage Crafts, the national charity for traditional skills, was recognising her rapid mastery of techniques that date back centuries.
This moment represents more than one person’s achievement. It demonstrates what happens when endangered crafts find committed hands and patient teachers.
Maisie’s Journey
Maisie arrived at Silverlining with no leatherworking experience. No background in craft. No years of apprenticeship. Just willingness to learn and an instinct for precision that revealed itself as soon as she picked up her first tools.
What followed was dedication of a rare kind. Maisie committed to comprehensive learning of materials, tools and techniques through hands-on practice and meticulous study. She sought feedback constantly, refined her skills relentlessly, and approached each project with patience.
Within nine months, she was promoted from trainee to junior craftsperson well ahead of the typical timeline. The promotion was earned through consistent quality, attention to detail, and work that exhibited standards typically seen in far more seasoned artisans.
Heritage Crafts described Maisie as blending “a proactive approach with an innate talent for precision, quality, and technical skill, which rivals more seasoned artisans.”
Why Training Matters
Maisie’s win matters beyond personal achievement. It proves something we have believed since establishing the Silverlining Academy of Skills in 2021: that craft skills can be learned, mastered and carried forward by anyone with passion and dedication, regardless of their starting point.
Our workshop’s average age is 31. That is intentional. We are investing in young craftspeople because we believe heritage craft deserves a future. Skills such as hand-finishing, leather moulding and straw marquetry do not survive in museums. They survive in workshops, in hands, in the daily practice of people who care enough to learn them.
A Broader Commitment To Heritage
Heritage Crafts is the national charity dedicated to safeguarding traditional craft skills in the UK. Their pioneering Red List of Endangered Crafts tracks more than 165 traditional practices at risk of vanishing within a generation. Each year, their awards celebrate excellence across a wide range of craft categories and levels of experience, recognising achievements that contribute to keeping these skills alive.
This year, Silverlining supported the celebration of Welsh craft by sponsoring the Wales Maker of the Year award. Our workshop sits in North Wales, we employ craftspeople from the local community, and we run the Silverlining Academy of Skills training the next generation. Supporting an award that uplifts Welsh makers feels like a natural extension of work that has been part of our ethos for four decades.
For 40 years, we have worked with materials and techniques that could easily have been lost: chip carving, marquetry, hand-finishing and traditional joinery. These skills do not survive by accident. They survive because someone commits to learning them, mastering them and teaching them to the next generation.
The Chain Continues
As Silverlining marks 40 years, Maisie’s achievement feels especially meaningful. Silverlining only exists because John Makepeace taught Mark Boddington four decades ago. Makepeace learned from others before him. Maisie learns from our team. In time, she will teach someone else.
Heritage is not only about preserving the past. It is about keeping skills alive, relevant and practised by hands young enough to carry them forward another 40 years.
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