The Landmark Trust

As our buildings are usually occupied by holiday guests, open days provide an opportunity for the public to gain access to some extraordinary places in our care. Some of our steadfast supporters, ‘Landmarkers’, will travel all over the country to visit a Landmark that’s very rarely opened. The local communities around our buildings are also really important to us – many people have connections to our buildings that go back generations. The open days help maintain good relationships and we like to make our neighbours feel welcome and connected to their local history.

To keep the programme varied each year though, the fun bit is choosing from some of the other wonderful properties, such as a Victorian station, a Georgian folly, or a coastal sea fort. We often have the opportunity to showcase freshly-restored buildings with gleaming bathrooms, and powered by renewable energy sources, allowing the public to visit for the first time. Last year, that was The Station Agent’s House in Manchester, and this year we opened Gothic Revival inspired, The Mayor’s Parlour, in Dover’s town hall.

This year at Calverley Old Hall, a major recent project for us between Leeds and Bradford, we welcomed back several key people who worked on the project, to align with the HODs theme of Architecture. Karen Lim from Cowper Griffith Architects shared insights and revealed design decisions with visitors; rising craft skills star and young bricklayer, Ellie Jae Dobson, gave demonstrations of building repair techniques. Meanwhile in the Community Space, we ran a drop-in stop motion animation activity with InspirEd Workshops that studied architectural features of Calverley Old Hall, that we hope to turn into an animated projection work.

• Families who spend the whole day at one of our sites, bring a picnic, explore the grounds and make themselves at home. A free family day out is becoming a very rare thing, with entry prices to heritage attractions now being out of reach for so many people. Having access to heritage at a young age can leave a lasting impression, and HODs enables families to do that.
• Meeting someone who comes through the door who followed the pink signs and has no idea where they are but are curious to find out!
• Seeing Landmark Housekeepers who sometimes work alone in what can be a solitary job, glow with pride at sharing their knowledge of the history of the building and seeing so many people enjoy it. I learn so much from them.
• When visitors come with their own memories of the building, bring old photos, or say something casually on their way out like, ‘I was born here’! It makes you remember that a building has a life longer than any of us.
• Seeing spaces return to their former use or transform with creativity. Last year for HODs, we held a life drawing workshop in the studio of former resident and artist Mary Spencer Watson at Dunshay Manor.

• Improving the diversity of our visitors – we want to make all communities feel welcome and show them that this history is for them too. It can take years to form connections and build trust, and we’re not quite there yet. My aim is to broaden the diversity of activities on offer at our events through a wider pool of facilitators.
• A common challenge we have is access – due to the nature of our historic buildings, some are not accessible for everyone. We have found other ways to make our events more accessible, such as at Princelet Street in London, where we’ve worked with Heritage Interpreters for the past two years to offer a BSL guide at open days.