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KCCF at the HCA ceremony

Gail McGarva wins fifth annual President’s Award for Endangered Crafts supported by KCCF

  • Heritage and Conservation

Dumfries and Galloway boatbuilder Gail McGarva BEM has won the fifth annual President’s Award for Endangered Crafts supported by the King Charles III Charitable Fund, including a £3,000 prize awarded at a special presentation at Eltham Palace on Tuesday 26 November 2024.

The Heritage Crafts Association was set up 14 years ago as a national charity to support and safeguard heritage crafts skills, and has become well known for its Red List of Endangered Crafts, the first research of its kind to rank traditional crafts in the UK by the likelihood they will survive the next generation.

The President’s Award celebrates an experienced practitioner who has gone to great lengths to ensure the continuation of their at-risk skills for the benefit of the next generation and includes a prize of £3,000 supported by King Charles III Charitable Fund. The winner is selected by Heritage Crafts Patron His Majesty the King from the three finalists shortlisted by the charity.

Gail McGarva BEM is a builder of boats, teller of stories and keeper of memories. As a traditional wooden boat-builder, she is passionate about preserving working boats in danger of extinction. Her specialism is the building of replicas or as she prefers to call them ‘daughter boats’, breathing life into a new generation of these traditional craft. Gail plans to use the funds to build a traditionally-constructed St Ayles Skiff and pass on the skills to the next generation through the process of the build. We were delighted to attend the ceremony and present Gail with her award.

Gail McGarva

The first runner-up was Sally Morrison, who specialises in engraving and enamelling watch dials at the watch company anOrdain. Her interest in champleé enamelling, the art of applying translucent enamel over a usually textured and precious metal background, has made her the best of a very small and elite group of crafts-people working in this field. Sally received the Patricia Lovett Award, a £1,000 award for second place, donated by former Heritage Crafts Chair Patricia Lovett MBE.

The second runner-up was Donna Campbell, a linen damask weaver at the Irish Linen Centre in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, who weaves damask cloth using a centuries-old process transferring designs via punch cards onto a Jacquard loom.

For a second year running Heritage Crafts commissioned reverse glass gilder and Endangered Crafts Fund recipient Eddy Bennett to make the trophy for this year’s winner using an array of reverse-glass techniques.

Learn more at www.heritagecrafts.org.uk.