History
Established in 1994, Heritage Open Days is England's contribution to the European Heritage Days and has since grown into the country's largest community heritage festival.
European roots
In 1985 the Council of Europe set up European Heritage Days, to raise awareness and appreciation for Europe’s cultural heritage, and the need for its care and protection. Today, 50 countries take part, each running it in their own way to highlight the dazzling diversity of Europe’s heritage, and our intercultural links.
Today's community tree
In England, Heritage Open Days has expanded and diversified from 701 events at its launch to over 5,000 today. Spanning the public, private and voluntary sectors, it is a unique and powerful partnership. Growing from European roots we are nationally supported but locally led - working with organisations and individuals across England to explore and celebrate our diverse heritage. Providing countless opportunites for more people to come together and enjoy, often surprising, always interesting, doorstep discoveries!
Highlighting our diverse heritage
Heritage Open Days has always been a fantastic showcase of the diversity of our heritage. To further encourage people to share different places, or highlight new stories of familiar places, each year we provide an inspiration prompt with our annual festival theme.
Creativity Unwrapped
Peel back the layers of our colourful history of creativity.
From the famous to the ‘familiar only to locals’, and covering all areas of creativity from art to zoetropes. We invited our festival community to 'unwrap' the people and places who give England’s heritage the X factor!
This was our most popular theme yet - over 1,200 events were inspired by it, ranging from bell ringing and backstage tours to talks on fashion, and video shorts on the art of the inland waterways.
Find out more
- Festival Spotlight - Creativity Unwrapped event highlights
- Blog - search for stories about beautiful books and deadly designs!
Astounding Inventions
Celebrating England's rich history of invention, industry and innovation.
Where would we be without steam trains? Computer algorithms? Chocolate bars? Or even toothbrushes? From innovative game-changing technologies to daily essentials, a huge range of inventions are part of England's heritage. Alongside the famous successes though, we also welcomed stories of local wonders, and the blunders, short-lived oddities, and outright failures!
With a little inspiration from our resource pack and a lot of local ingenuity organisers planned 623 events for the theme - from a town tour of gas lamps to a lawnmower museum and a gadget trail. We also published a series of popular blog posts highlighting astounding inventions from the worlds of engineering, archaeology, medicine and gardening to share more inspiration.
Find out more
- Festival Spotlight - Astounding Inventions event highlights
- Blog - search for stories about lawnmowers and lasers!
Edible England
Empty the larder, preheat the oven, and set the table!
What we eat and drink is at the heart of much of our culture, our history, our communities, and our lives. It's a doorway into hidden histories, regional differences and the myriad cultures around us. So from woodland foraging to factory floor, forgotten recipes to regional delicacies, we asked our festival community to explore the past, present, and future of our culinary heritage.
730 events were run with an Edible England theme (19% of the programme) generating strong press interest, including a full page profile of Brighton's Regency Cook, who ran a workshop on the history of English puddings, in the 'i' newspaper.
Find out more
- Festival Spotlight - Edible England event highlights
- Blog - search for stories about heritage plants and the history of Christmas puddings!
Hidden Nature
From centuries-old trees to urban oases and everything in between.
We wanted Hidden Nature to encompass the broadest possible spectrum of events: opening up areas of the countryside that weren't normally accessible to the public and revealing the hidden history of farms and forests, gardens, orchards and vineyards. We also looked for the Hidden Nature to be found within our urban spaces and buildings - from the animals that live within our walls and under our feet to the origins of the timbers in our roofs. The possibilities to connect with our natural world were (and remain) endless.
Whilst some plans had to be pruned due to the pandemic, others blossomed. In a year where people were confined to their immediate locality, appreciation of green spaces and nature rose. The main theme page proved popular and 328 Hidden Nature events were hosted for the final festival, a record 18% of the programme.
Find out more
- Festival Spotlight - Hidden Nature event highlights
- Rangers Reveal walks
People Power
Then. Now. Always.
Celebrating the ability of local communities, groups and individuals to evoke change. People Power can be demonstrated in many ways. Street art; citizen science projects; protest marches; folk songs; petitions; documentaries; crowdfunding; letters to newspaper editors; forming groups such as trade unions. It’s rarely one person or action that creates wholesale change, but they can be the pivot that turns the tide of opinion to push forward that change.This theme was inspired by two contrasting anniversaries, which highlight the different forms of People Power: the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo massacre, and the 25th anniversary of Heritage Open Days, our People Powered festival.
Over 460 events were staged and a special booklet was produced to celebrate the people, places and events that make Heritage Open Days so unique.
Find out more
- Festival Spotlight - People Power event highlights
- 25 Years of People Power - anniversary booklet
- Dare to Dream - Unsung Stories arts project celebrating People Power
Extraordinary Women
Part of a sector wide celebration - 'Vote 100'
To mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act and 90 years since the Equal Franchise Women's Suffrage Act, Heritage Open Days celebrated ‘Extraordinary Women’ - widening the spotlight beyond those who are already recognised and championed. We aimed to uncover, acknowledge and reveal the women - workers, pioneers, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters and friends - who have touched lives, and brought about change, at every scale.
We created a range of resources for organisers including: banners, stickers, posters, and activity ideas. Over 500 events were run from picnics and performances, to plant-pressing and projections! Stories were also celebrated through our special Wall of Women, created from over 140 nominations, and an ongoing series of #Xwomen blog posts.
Find out more
- Wall of Women - Extraordinary Women poster and key
- put her forward - Unsung Stories arts project celebrating today's Extraordinary Women
- Blog - search for stories of sufragettes, engineers, artists and international travellers