Discover the past on your doorstep

A Medieval Day in Dore, Sheffield. Picture: Dore Village Society

Afree showcase of England’s treasured heritage is celebrating a llandmark of its own this year. The Heritage Open Days (HOD) scheme, where participating venues throw open their doors to the public in September, is marking its 25th anniversary.

It is England’s largest annual festival of history and culture, with more than 5,000 events on view from September 13 to 22.

To celebrate its anniversary, 25 new places are opening their doors. These range from country houses, museum archives and gardens, to theatres, wildlife reserves, distilleries and even a solar farm.

The national heritage scheme’s manager Annabelle Thorpe said: “It’s always exciting when new places join Heritage Open Days. And this year we have a bumper crop of first-timers. I

can’t think of a better way to celebrate our 25th anniversary than by sharing it with these iconic places.”

Many of the venues taking part for the first time are not normally open to the public, including the Mausoleum at Castle Howard and the Burnley Empire Theatre, which is opening its doors for the first time since closing in 1995.

The 25 new places cover a wide range of topics; natural heritage will be celebrated at the Slimbridge home of World Wildlife Fund founder, Sir Peter Scott.

The country’s manufacturing and industrial heritage will be on show at working sites, such as the Bombay Sapphire Distillery in Hampshire.

Every September, doors are flung open at some of the country’s best-known attractions, as well as private and community spaces, thanks to support from the National Trust and players of People’s Postcode Lottery.

The scheme’s current scale is a far cry form the first HOD in 1994 when 701 sites were open. The history of the early days has been explored in a new book called ‘25 Years of People Power: 1994 to 2019’. The first HOD organiser was armed with just a phone, an Amstrad computer and some hefty directories. But a quarter of a million visitors came to the inaugural event.

The book also details how the festival has grown and flourished. HOD has been around in an era of vast change, but it has remained true to its founding principles: free access and being community led. Annabelle Thorpe, who wrote the introduction for the book, said: “In 1994 the internet was in its infancy, the mobile phone an exotic invention and ‘heritage’ was a national concern, looked after by government and charitable institutions. Fast forward 25 years and the world has changed.” The manager highlights how technology giants Apple and Google have come to dominate our lives as globalisation continues to grow apace. But she adds: “It is truly a cause for celebration, that in the midst of such change we have come to increasingly cherish and value what is local to us - and nothing demonstrates that more vividly than Heritage Open Days, which has become England’s largest festival of history and culture.

“Each year thousands of stories are shared, those intangible threads that link us together; conjuring up people and places, incidents and anecdotes that might otherwise be forgotten.”

The book also gives figures to demonstrate HOD’S impact over the last 25 years. Last year it drew 3.1 million visitors and generated an estimated £20m for local economies. In 1994 a total of 380 organisers opened up 701 sites. By 2018 there were 2,046 organisers and 5,517 events. This year’s theme is ‘People Power’, which has been inspired by two anniversaries. The first is the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo massacre when British forces attacked a big pro-democracy rally in Manchester. The outrage led to parliamentary reform.

The other inspiration is the 25th anniversary of the HOD, which is very much about people’s efforts to showcase their historical and cultural gems.

As Annabelle put it in her concluding remarks: “In a rapidly changing world, Heritage Open Days’ achievement is that it is more relevant, more necessary, more essential now than it has ever been.

“It is a reassuring presence, a reminder that people care passionately about the places they call home, the communities that surround them, and the lives of those who have gone before.”

Inset, from left, meet costumed characters from across history at Hartlebury Castle, Kidderminster. Picture: Hartlebury Castle Youngsters dress up at Welwyn Roman Baths. Picture: Welwyn Hatfield Museum Service.

Senior supervisor Joanne Cousins at Exeter Library’s Special Collections ‘White Glove’ Experience. Picture: Exeter Library/ Guy Newman.