Warning traditional South West crafts in danger of dying out

Warning traditional South West crafts in danger of dying out, according to Make Southwest’s Laura Wasley, who says the region’s cultural heritage is tightly linked to tourism and the economy. An exhibition highlights 14 master makers and shows how geography shaped traditional trades, including boatbuilding, rope making, sail making, basket weaving, and tanning. Wasley points to relative regional isolation and abundant natural resources as factors that helped preserve skills such as thatching, dry stone walling, and hedge laying, still in use today. She previously hosted cross-party MPs at an event in parliament to stress the importance of small individual makers. Some crafts have already disappeared, including scuttle basket making, which Hilary Burns in Yalberton is trying to revive after finding no British makers since the 1950s.