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How to write a press release
Posted by Alice Kershaw on 14th May 2012 | 0 Comments
There are many ways to raise awareness of your event. To get your stories into the media and announce things you think are newsworthy, it's best to issue a press release. You can email your release to local and national journalists and also put it on your website. But first of course, you need to write it. But how to go about?
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Bats in the belfry!
Posted by Chana James on 9th May 2012 | 0 Comments
Actually that’s a bit of a myth: bats are unlikely to roost in belfries as they can be quite draughty (and noisy). Bats like it a bit warmer and prefer nooks and crannies in the main part of the church where they can huddle together rather than a belfry or tower. So, churches do play a vital role in the survival of bats, which are an endangered species.
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Reaching new audiences
Posted by Zoe Potter on 30th April 2012 | 0 Comments
Let’s face it, we’d all like to reach further a field for new audiences and supporters. But how exactly do you go about reaching out to them? Before you rush ahead and place adverts here, there and everywhere. It’s worth thinking about what you actually have to offer these potential new audiences and go from there. So, here are a few ideas.
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Creating a heritage trail
Posted by Tim Prevett on 23rd April 2012 | 0 Comments
A useful thing (among many) that Heritage Open Days can bring out is linking buildings and creating trails of heritage. This is done either by the history hungry punter selecting their desired scope of places to visit over Heritage Open Days, or by local organisers putting together their heritage links for people to enjoy.
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Tell us your stories: make history come alive
Posted by Annabelle Thorpe on 19th April 2012 | 0 Comments
This year, Heritage Open Days is all about stories. Every Heritage Open Days property has a tale to tell, whether a glamorous country house, a medieval undercroft, a church, or a lighthouse. We want to make history come alive with stories of love affairs and family feuds, political schemes and wild romances. Have you got a story to tell us?
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Linking up with your local Council
Posted by Roger Woodley on 26th March 2012 | 0 Comments
Here in Cheltenham, we’ve built up excellent relations with our Borough Council – or the part we regularly deal with, anyway. I know from talking around and from general gossip that it’s not always like this, so I’ll tell you how it’s come about here – as a success story!
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Making a plain building speak
Posted by Tim Prevett on 20th March 2012 | 2 Comments
The great thing about Heritage Open Days is that it gives people a chance to look at buildings they wouldn't normally pay any attention to. Because they don't look very interesting. At least not at the first glance. It's however these unassuming places that often hoard the most riveting stories. Not convinced? Well, let me illustrate my point by telling you about some massive, rather dull looking walls whose fading dark shades turned out to be more significant than they initially seemed.
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Registration 2012: words are power
Posted by Nicola Graham on 13th March 2012 | 1 Comment
You’ve filled in your contact details, ticked the organiser box and selected which type of organisation you are working for. So far so good. You scan the organiser agreement...yes, yes, yes, sign it, date it, save it, good. Pretty straight forward. Excellent! This will be done in no time. Right, next bit.
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Discovering Places - Making the most of the Olympic torch relay
Posted by Discovering Places on 7th March 2012 | 0 Comments
Summer 2012 will be a time of UK-wide celebration. It will also be a time of exploration as the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay will spend 70 days travelling across the UK. The torch will be within one-hour journey time of 95% of the population at many points along the route, and thousands of people will be coming out each day to see the torch travel through their town, village or city.
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How to recruit new volunteers
Posted by Lucie Thacker on 27th February 2012 | 0 Comments
People who volunteer do so because they believe in the cause they choose to support with their time and effort. If you open your doors for Heritage Open Days and could do with a few more people to help out, here are a few ways to recruit new volunteers.
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Children are the future
Posted by Zoe Potter on 20th February 2012 | 0 Comments
Yes, that old cliché. Children are the visitors of the future, the supporters of the future, the members of the future and even the heritage open days organisers of the future. So it’s worthwhile coming up with some creative ways to help them engage with heritage, and I don’t mean by using standard colouring or quiz sheets.
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All at sea - National Historic Ships UK is shoring up support for Heritage Open Days
Posted by Emerald Laing on 16th February 2012 | 0 Comments
“Britain is an island nation” – that’s a phrase you don’t hear so often these days. People forget that the UK is surrounded by the sea and that historically we would depend on maritime links for food, work and leisure. With the decline in Britain’s shipping industry, many UK ports and docksides have become neglected wastelands with prime waterfronts seen as a target for residential developers.
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Working with networks - or why the A697 is worth a trip
Posted by Jim Herbert on 13th February 2012 | 1 Comment
I’m the Heritage Development Officer for Northumberland County Council, and one of my jobs is to encourage the people in the county to get involved with Heritage Open Days. This post is how the building of networks - however informal - is key to the weekend’s success.
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Knocking on people’s doors
Posted by Roger Woodley on 5th February 2012 | 0 Comments
Picture it. I want to persuade a new institution to open up for Heritage Open Days, or I’m looking for sponsorship. This is a typical dialogue:
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Linking buildings, creating clusters – together we’re stronger
Posted by Lucie Thacker on 30th January 2012 | 0 Comments
Heritage Open Days visitors really appreciate any ideas for other places to explore and there are loads of ways to make connections. Here are a few ideas based on our experience.
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Making collections accessible to visually impaired visitors
Posted by Ben Goodwin on 23rd January 2012 | 1 Comment
Catering for differently abled people within arts and heritage venues is essential and rewarding but it can pose a challenge. At the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham where I work, we are grateful for the support of our volunteers who have helped us improve our accessibility for those with visual impairment.
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The thrill of re-enactment - Nantwich’s Holly Holy Day
Posted by Tim Prevett on 19th January 2012 | 1 Comment
If you want a vivid encounter with history, to experience "living history", there's nothing quite like a reenactment event. Watching costumed or uniformed re-enactors individually or en masse gives the closest feeling you can get to having a tardis and going back in time to taste the moment. If that’s what the public get out of this, it’s an even bigger vibe being one of the re-enactors.
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Lifting the lid on disability history
Posted by Esther Gill on 16th January 2012 | 0 Comments
For many disabled people, the everyday experiences of their historical peers are rarely reflected in the stories that are told through local museums, heritage sites and events such as Heritage Open Days. In the past, and still today, disabled people were often educated separately at special schools and sometimes worked and spent their leisure time outside the mainstream. Their stories are not illuminated in our histories and generally remain hidden. I think that Heritage Open Days offers an exciting opportunity to change this, exploring an area of history that is not well known, linking with new audiences, and creating new events.
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Add some va-va-voom with vintage vehicles
Posted by Roy.Dowding on 9th January 2012 | 0 Comments
Following a pilot scheme in 2009, more than a dozen Heritage Open Days venues - including a school, a postal museum, a dockyard, several stately homes and even a Victorian cemetery - welcomed displays of historic vehicles in 2011.
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Historic churches as visiting destinations
Posted by Chana James on 14th December 2011 | 0 Comments
Churches haven’t always been readily associated with the word tourism, but increasingly more and more tourism managers are realising their potential as part of the ‘tourism offer’ for their local area. We at the Churches Conservation Trust (CCT) have been welcoming visitors to our churches since 1969.
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Do we need leaflets?
Posted by Roger Woodley on 6th December 2011 | 0 Comments
The world’s moving on. Times change. And in 2011, in my town of Cheltenham at least, and no doubt most places, we found that more and more people had heard about Heritage Open Days through the internet.
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What buildings tell me about where I live
Posted by Carol Taylor Bruce on 1st December 2011 | 0 Comments
All over Britain, there are interesting buildings with a story to tell. Some may appear unassuming at first sight, others seem to make statements about their importance and almost shout it from the rooftops. Let me take you on a stroll through the village where I live.
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Top tips for applying for grants
Posted by Lucie Thacker on 29th November 2011 | 1 Comment
First of all, I don't have all the answers, and not all of our bids are successful. There is lots of good advice given by the funders, so here are a few tips gleaned from my experience at a Building Preservation Trust.
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How to run a fundraising campaign
Posted by Philly Graham on 22nd November 2011 | 1 Comment
Working in the third sector, you regularly come across individuals throwing themselves out of a plane and into the challenge of raising money for a cause they believe in. I have repeatedly seen fundraisers achieve greater success than they expected to, disproving the economic climate’s murmurings that now is not a good time. So how do they do it?
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Opening a Window to Your Past
Posted by Sarah Holloway on 9th November 2011 | 27 Comments
For the past three years a project in Yorkshire has been bringing local groups together to share their heritage with the public through fabulous exhibitions. By taking over empty shop units in Wakefield’s Ridings Shopping Centre and developing a website the project has reached thousands of people. And now Alan Black, the man behind it all, has kindly agreed to share with us the secrets of how he opened a window to your past...
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Localism and Heritage Open Days
Posted by Ben Goodwin on 3rd November 2011 | 1 Comment
Localism does what it says on the tin; it prioritises the local. It supports local production and consumption of goods, local control of government and promotion of local history, local cultures and local identity.
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Working with themes
Posted by Tim Prevett on 27th October 2011 | 0 Comments
So you've opened a building over Heritage Open Days, people enjoyed your tour, but what next? Have you ever thought working with themes? Believe it or not, it's something quite obvious - just there waiting to be discovered, explored and told.
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‘Tis already the season at Petworth House
Posted by Zoe Potter on 20th October 2011 | 1 Comment
With many National Trust houses preparing to close for winter conservation work, have you ever wondered what else the National Trust gets up to over the winter? Well, the contents of Petworth House will soon be covered by individual, handmade dust sheets, but the same cannot be said for the rest of the property. With more winter events than ever we are entering one of our busiest times of year, read on to discover the highlights of our winter event calendar, the surprising preparations that are taking place and what to expect from the National Trust over the coming months…
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Real people with real issues: Working with disabled volunteers
Posted by Esther Gill on 11th October 2011 | 0 Comments
I am currently pre-occupied by the generally enjoyable post-HODs activity of ‘reading the feedback’: positive, negative, insightful, useful, frustrating, well deserved. As part of this process I have been looking at the transcript of an interview with a Heritage Open Days volunteer from Gosport who is passionate and knowledgeable about local history, keen to use her skills and time on a worthwhile project and who also happens to be disabled.
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In praise of local distinctiveness
Posted by Carol Taylor Bruce on 10th October 2011 | 0 Comments
Aren’t we lucky? Every few miles, the English landscape changes. This country must be one of the most visually diverse in the world. Rolling hills and valleys, rocky outcrops and moorland, woodland and plains, they all translate into exciting vernacular buildings, constructed with varied materials.
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There and back again - a HODs tale
Posted by Sarah Holloway on 27th September 2011 | 0 Comments
After months and months of working away to register events for Heritage Open Days (HODs), people often ask me what we, as the national team, do over the weekend and afterwards. Well, here is a quick review of this year’s itinerary for all those who are curious.
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Marvellous, mysterious, mundaine - how the past’s silent witnesses speak to us
Posted by Tim Prevett on 23rd September 2011 | 1 Comment
Heritage starts with people. For many folk that piece of heritage probably started out as the horrible new carbuncle built in their backyard (against their wishes). It's then passed down through the years by people whose own stories are linked with it. With the time it becomes invested with more and more meaning, as life, work and death happen around it, within it. Then, it ends up being a valued old something-or-other, and then enjoyed and maintained by people today. But what if there's no human narrative left to tell the story and help us make sense of the past?
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Is anyone afraid of the dark? Bristol diaries
Posted by Nicola Graham on 20th September 2011 | 4 Comments
"Is anyone afraid of the dark?" It was the last thing we heard before being plunged into blackness. We were underneath Temple Meads Station. It was only 5 seconds of blackness. But it was long enough for the small group of us, blinking together, to gain some understanding of the working conditions of those who forged the tunnels over 100 years before.
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Open days galore!
Posted by Katja Condy on 16th September 2011 | 1 Comment
Heritage Open Days 2011 may be over but are you aware that it’s still open door season? If you missed our event, caught the explorer bug or happened to be one of our volunteers and too busy to sample others’ events, why don’t you check out what’s open in London, Wales or Scotland, or hop across the Channel? For Heritage Open Days is part of European Heritage Days. Read on to get the bigger picture.
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Heritage Fashion - ditch the tweed!
Posted by Alice Kershaw on 15th September 2011 | 0 Comments
When fashion editors and advertisers describe something as ‘heritage’ they seem to mean, ‘rather tweedy’ judging by a recent advert for Westfield shopping centre.
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Longthorpe Tower - the view from the till
Posted by Alice Kershaw on 14th September 2011 | 0 Comments
I felt a bit under-dressed when I turned up to be the 'responsible adult' for Heritage Open Days at Longthorpe Tower on Saturday. We had 7 re-enactors, everyone from a monk to the Lord of the Manor, all be-hatted, with swords and armour.
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Ups and downs of a tour guide: impressions from Heritage Open Days in Crewe
Posted by Tim Prevett on 13th September 2011 | 6 Comments
Wow, what a weekend that was. A year since I resolved to do the "Heritage Lost and History Discovered Tour", and last December "Murders, Mishaps and Morals Tour" crystalised in my mind. Both tours were delivered for the first time for Heritage Open Days from last Thursday to Sunday in Crewe. An enormous amount of research, planning and effort went into them. What went well, and where do I need to learn?
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Unlock Petworth House and other National Trust treasures
Posted by Zoe Potter on 9th September 2011 | 0 Comments
So the big day is nearly upon us, signs have been made, floors swept and excitement is building. Here at Petworth House and Park we always like to do something special for our Heritage Open Days participation, and this year promises to be no exception; we are celebrating the 10th of September by opening our atmospheric attics and hidden stables, places normally out of sight.
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Using’s better than losing!
Posted by Lauren Schofield on 8th September 2011 | 1 Comment
To move forward in a positive way, we need to keep an eye on where we are coming from. Learning from the past is a sentiment we can all agree on and the phrase ‘using is better than losing’ can be applied to almost everything. Whether it is in regards to the throw-away culture of the last few decades that is causing problems in the environment, the skills that organisations such as the Heritage Crafts Association are working to protect or the buildings that define our towns and villages.
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Final preparations at a Heritage Open Days site
Posted by Louise Rogers on 7th September 2011 | 1 Comment
Three years ago the local Heritage Open Days organiser asked us at the Newcastle-under-Lyme Unitarian Meeting House to participate in Heritage Open Days. As the oldest non-conformist chapel in the area it was thought to be of significant interest. So without much more thought than, ‘It would be good to invite people into our beloved building,’ we were off. But off to where?
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What’s new for Heritage Open Days? A whistle-stop tour through Northumberland
Posted by Jim Herbert on 6th September 2011 | 0 Comments
What’s new in Northumberland? Well, ironically because we have such a wealth of old stuff, quite a lot! My problem is where to begin? Northumberland is a big county with so many different types of culture and history. By my reckoning, out of the hundred or so places and events in this year's Heritage Open Days programme, about forty sites participate for the first time or are established venues with a new exhibition or other activity. So get out a map and join me on a whistle-stop tour of my county!
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Truly open to all: a selection of accessible events on the South Coast
Posted by Esther Gill on 5th September 2011 | 0 Comments
As I venture into the world of blogging with my first Heritage Open Days post, I am wondering how I can pick out specific events that are accessible? Don’t we all aim to put on events that are ‘accessible, inclusive, open to all’? Isn’t this the ethos behind Heritage Open Days?
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Top tips for giving a radio interview
Posted by Tim Prevett on 2nd September 2011 | 13 Comments
Video didn't really kill the radio star, even though The Buggles did a fantastic piece of pop along those lines. Radio’s hanging around very well, partly because the advent of the internet has given it a new lease of life. Being able to listen to almost any radio station from anywhere in the world anywhere in the world, makes for listenable radio like never before. “Listen Again” facilities add the option of catching up with programmes you may have missed. If you get the chance to do a radio interview, the chances for it working well for you are unparalled in radio history. Used in concert with social media, it can serve to further your publicity as never before.
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What you always wanted to know about town criers (but were afraid to ask)*
Posted by Katja Condy on 1st September 2011 | 2 Comments
I have a confession to make. I have a soft spot for town criers. Okay, in their frocks, tights and tricorne hats, their faces red and strained from shouting, they don’t make for an obvious sex symbol. But their pluck and wit always bring a smile to my face. There’s something reassuring about this kind of word-of-mouth PR in times when instant messages can travel the globe. And anyway, it’s not just a male business, and never was; apparently husband and wife teams weren’t uncommon in the past, and today, so I’m told, there are some 20 women in Britain filling the post.
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What’s sport to do with heritage? Showcase Oxford
Posted by Lauren Schofield on 31st August 2011 | 0 Comments
This blog post is co-written by Felicity Crawford, Oxford Preservation Trust’s sporting guru, and features interviews with Chris Freeman, Oxfordshire Sports Partnership, and Sarah Richards, Oxford Brookes University.
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How to spot a Georgian building
Posted by Alice Kershaw on 30th August 2011 | 0 Comments
Read a Jane Austen novel and you'll be transported back into a scenery of architecture and landscape we today recognise as Georgian. The buildings of this era have a distinctive style and most remaining in anything like their original condition have been given some protection through being listed.
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Watch out for the gargoyles!...
Posted by Chris Cox on 26th August 2011 | 3 Comments
…And the corbels, columns, and even the odd green man. Yes, I’m talking about the weird and wonderful carvings that you can find in historic churches up and down the land. As Development Officer for The Churches Conservation Trust, I’ve visited many of the historic churches we look after. But I am a long way from visiting all of the 344 in our care, ranging from the dinky Anglo Saxon to the imposing Victorian. I have, however, seen a wonderful array of stone and wooden carvings that adorn these buildings.
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A day in the life of Petworth House and Park
Posted by Zoe Potter on 25th August 2011 | 0 Comments
They say it takes all sorts, a statement certainly true of Petworth House and Park in West Sussex. It takes the varied expertise and dedication of the whole team to keep this amazing mansion, not only open, but interesting and engaging for all our visitors. We are moving away from our traditional stately home image, and on to bigger and brighter things. From banister brushes to hidden attics read on for a sneak peak at what goes on behind closed doors.
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How to keep your volunteers happy – 6 tips
Posted by Roger Woodley on 24th August 2011 | 2 Comments
Six tips coming. But first, very likely, you’re a volunteer yourself. So ask yourself: what keeps you happy? For my part, what keeps me happy as a volunteer is being appreciated. It’s easy. So, when dealing with volunteers, the summary is: be really grateful. But let me explain in more detail:
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All aboard!
Posted by Ben Goodwin on 23rd August 2011 | 1 Comment
Transport will be a key theme up and down the country during Heritage Open Days. From Merseyside Transport Trust’s classic bus rides to Newcastle’s Victoria Tunnel tours, or a walk along the old Scarborough to Whitby railway in North Yorkshire to a talk about airships on the Humber Estuary in Hull – our rich transport heritage will be explored at various locations.
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Ten clues to help you identify a Victorian house
Posted by Alice Kershaw on 22nd August 2011 | 3 Comments
Seemingly obviously, Victorian houses were built between 1837 and 1901, when Queen Victoria was on the throne. However some people, including the Victorian Society itself, take ‘Victorian Architecture’ to encompass Edwardian as well, which takes this time period up to 1910.
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What to look out for in architecture
Posted by Roger Woodley on 19th August 2011 | 2 Comments
Here are just a few tips – not a deep lesson – on what to look out for to form an opinion about your surroundings. (Deep lessons are available, but you don’t need them to enjoy architecture: we can all enjoy it, without training, because we’re all in or around buildings nearly all the time, so we get opinions about them quite naturally).
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Top tips for tip top entertainment: how a drama performance brought a coffin fittings works to life
Posted by Lucie Thacker on 16th August 2011 | 2 Comments
We didn’t decide to be dramatic – but Tin Box Theatre Company did. After many years of work and several turns of fortune, Birmingham Conservation Trust bought a semi-derelict Grade II* late 19th century manufactory on the edge of the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham last year (with the aid of a grant from Birmingham City Council). The Coffin Fittings Works is a handsome red brick building, fronting the road and with two rear wings arranged around a courtyard. Without services and with boarded-up ground floor windows, the Coffin Fittings Works looked doomed to wait for the results of major fundraising before it was used again. Heritage Open Days were the only opportunity the public had to have a look inside and then the two Jo’s got in touch...
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Contemporary highlights
Posted by Lauren Schofield on 12th August 2011 | 1 Comment
People don’t usually associate the word heritage with modern culture but really heritage and preservation are terms that include all aspects of society. They are not against development but support the positive enhancement of our local areas and the conservation of cultural gems, be they 5000 or 5 years old.
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Evaluation with a twist
Posted by Zoe Potter on 9th August 2011 | 1 Comment
With Heritage Open Days drawing ever nearer, you will no doubt be busy planning every last detail of your event, but spare a minute to consider what happens after the big day, how will you measure its success? To get the most out of your evaluation and dare I say, make it fun, it’s important to consider evaluation now rather than as an afterthought. Yes, I did say fun. With the growing focus of heritage organisers on visitor experience, enjoyment and engagement (things that are rather difficult to quantify) a bit of planning means you can get creative with evaluation and wave goodbye to spreadsheets and pie charts!
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Guiding tours that people enjoy
Posted by Tim Prevett on 5th August 2011 | 7 Comments
Guiding tours that people enjoy is about allowing the visitor to connect with a place and linking it with a lasting good memory of their visit. That’s not as intimidating as it sounds because much of what makes an enjoyable tour is common sense when you pause to collect your thoughts.
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Understanding and engaging different audiences
Posted by Lauren Schofield on 1st August 2011 | 6 Comments
Think of Oxford and you think dreaming spires, Christchurch, Lewis Carol, perhaps General Pitt Rivers and his shrunken heads... whatever it is, it tends to be something to do with the rich heritage of one of the world’s most famous (and fabulous) Universities. Its fame puts it in the league of world heritage sites and therefore, in many ways, it does not feel like a part of local people’s history. Oxford Preservation Trust’s aim for 2011 is to engage new audiences and we’ve found that a great way to do this is through people's own history.
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Maximise publicity using networks
Posted by Jim Herbert on 1st August 2011 | 11 Comments
So, you've bought that old and mysterious property and have decided to share it with the country before restoring it and moving in. You've registered it for Heritage Open Days, online or posted off your form. Now what? How are you going to get noticed as one site among the thousands of others in the country?
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Heritage is more than bricks and mortar
Posted by Carol Taylor Bruce on 29th July 2011 | 4 Comments
Buildings can be something we just take for granted. They surround us every day as we walk down the street and live our lives in them. Some buildings are functional and mundane, but others are special and some have unique stories to tell. They reflect the times when they were built, the materials available for their construction, the cost of building land, the fortunes of those who put them up, fashions of architecture, and sometimes, eccentric ideas of builders and stone-masons who worked on them. These are all treasures to be explored at the annual Heritage Open Days in September at participating properties across the country. However, the secret and hidden parts of such places are not obvious as one passes by, or even on entering. By secret and hidden, I mean the extraordinary lives of people who may have lived there over the centuries of their existence.
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The only way is… heritage: Thinking about different audiences and marketing to them
Posted by Ben Goodwin on 26th July 2011 | 5 Comments
Whether you want to ‘get down with the kids’ or engage more with the elderly, Heritage Open Days offers the perfect opportunity to attract new audiences to your venue.
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Behind the scenes: Q & A with film maker Jack Mead
Posted by Nicola Graham on 22nd July 2011 | 2 Comments
Welcome to Jack Mead, director of the Heritage Open Days video, as he tells you a little more of what went on behind the scenes...
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Cuppas, cameras and collaboration: Behind the scenes of the promotional video
Posted by Nicola Graham on 22nd July 2011 | 0 Comments
Tea-time in the Heritage Open Days office is a serious business. 14 different types of tea between us... serious. But more than that... it's a time of exchange and re-assessment, of pooling time-tables and to-do lists, of decision making and looking forward; allowing space for new ideas, like promotional videos...
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Whither shall we wander?
Posted by Sarah Holloway on 19th July 2011 | 1 Comment
Here in the Heritage Open Days office we have been beavering away for the past few months going through all the entries for this year’s programme, and more arrive each day. Some have entertained us, others intrigued, all have been interesting. And now the event directory is up on the website, you too can start looking through what’s on offer and planning where to go in September. But with nearly 3,000 entries listed already and more to come, where do you start, and what will catch your eye?
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A triple launch and why heritage is a token of love
Posted by Katja Condy on 18th July 2011 | 2 Comments
All good things come in threes, they say, and already I’ve broken one of the golden rules of copy writing: don’t use clichés. But it’s fair to say that we are making history today (oops, I did it again) by launching 1. this year’s Heritage Open Days event directory, 2. our very first promotional video ever and 3. a ground-breaking new blog. Surely, these are three good reasons for a cheery toast and an appreciative pat on our collective shoulder (are you keeping up?).
