Join us to discuss the numbers and stories from this year's festival.

A young independent researcher found Heritage Open Days a valuable platform to share her work ahead of an important centenary next year. Exploring the sensitive story of Princess Irene Duleep Singh — a woman history has often overlooked — she worked collaboratively to navigate complex themes of identity, mental health, and heritage, and overcome challenges of access and copyright. The wonderful response to her in-person and online talks demonstrates how successful her efforts were and bodes well for future plans.

Discover the talented dancers who have worked on stages across the globe, on films such as Indianna Jones, and with iconic pop stars like Madonna. The history of Black dancers in British ballet is rich and inspiring, but not well known. A project run by Oxygen Arts is seeking to change that, they gave a wonderful talk over our festival but as we couldn’t all attend, we’ve invited them to share their work here. Be inspired by some of their stories and find out more about their important work.

This Italianate Palace in the heart of Suffolk, with over 1,800 acres of parkland and gardens, is quite the showstopper of a day out. Over the past few years the team have tried out various audience focused events and often had those visitors asking to be invited back next time something ‘bigger’ was on. So for 2025 they went bigger, MUCH bigger – offering a 10 day extravaganza of activities showcasing ‘behind the scenes’ of the estate.

Navigable waterways are an important part of our island story. A dedicated group of volunteers in Nottinghamshire helped bring some of it to life this year with three fabulous, fun events as they participated for the first time. Seeing the festival as an opportunity to promote their work to the wider community, they also found working on it helped them develop new skills, resources and, best of all, brought the team closer together.

Ten days, so… many… miles! By bike, train and car the team criss-crossed the country to visit as many places as possible over the festival. Alongside managing the media channels and taking turns with 'helpdesk duty' it's really important for us to see events in action, to take photographs (LOTs of photographs!) and support the amazing volunteers and staff working so hard on the ground. From ancient African games and local folklore to industrial mines and pink treasure trails, here's a quick taste of where we went and what we discovered this September.

The good, the bad... and the bunting! Our amazing festival is over for another year, but we couldn't visit all the thousands of events, so we need you to tell us - how did it go?

Take your friends and family down memory lane with the Windrush Front Room.

Talk titled "Northampton in 100 years’ time - Facing the Future of Global Warming" What will be the effects of Global Warming on Northampton? what might the World your grandchildren and great grandchildren inherit be like?

A chance to explore this medieval battlefield with the Battlefields Trust