Image: Jill Furmanovsky

We're delighted to announce that the Blake Cottage Trust has been awarded £25K by the Garfield Weston Foundation to assist in replacing the roof on William Blake’s cottage. The Foundation is a family-founded grant-maker that gives money to support a wide variety of charities across the UK.

Blake Cottage Trust Chair, Doug Nicholls commented: "It is a privilege to receive support from the Garfield Weston Foundation. They are one of the most imaginative, generous and transformative donors  across a very broad range of endeavours in the arts, community organisation, education, environmental issues, faith groups, health and welfare and youth support. We are benefiting from the Foundation's extensive commitments to museums and heritage work and their award will go a long way to helping us get the cottage roof replaced in 2025."

We've received a surprise email from the renowned singer-songwriter and activist, Billy Bragg, who has often talked about how important William Blake’s work is to him.  Billy wrote to say that he is auctioning one of his guitars to raise funds for the cottage restoration. The trust is excited to have his support and grateful for his very generous gesture. Billy said: ‘I'm auctioning off a few old guitars of mine on Ebay… I've been looking for a way to support what you're doing down at Felpham, so the proceeds from this week's instrument, an Epiphone semi-acoustic, will be for the benefit of the Blake Cottage Trust.’

You can find the online auction and follow the bidding on this Ebay link: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/365247860986

It was a historic day at Blake’s cottage and a significant step in the repair of the building.  We removed sections of thatch to allow inspection of the roof timbers and base layers of the thatch. Although the thatch generally, including the historic base layer, was found to be in poor condition, we have saved some of the material for archival purposes. Our Chairperson, Doug Nicholls commented: “This work was long overdue.  We have opened up the roof area so that our expert master timber framer Joe Thompson and one of the nation’s foremost conservation engineers Ed Morton of the Morton Partnership can survey the roof of the building and the supporting timbers next week. In turn their reports will inform the grant applications we will be making in early December for total roof restoration. We are determined to keep the momentum going and open Blake’s cottage to the public in 2027.  We have a long way to go and still lack funds, so please keep donations coming. Every penny counts and is greatly appreciated.”