Heritage Open Days are an annual celebration of England's architecture and culture that allows visitors free access to historical landmarks that are either not usually open, or would normally charge an entrance fee. It also includes tours, events and activities related to architecture and culture.
Heritage Open Days were established in 1994 as England's contribution to European Heritage Days, in which 49 countries now participate.
Organised by volunteers — usually property owners or managers — for local people, Heritage Open Days are one of England's biggest and most popular voluntary cultural event, attracting some 800,000 people every year. Until April 2009 the Civic Trust gave central co-ordination and a national voice to the event; it is now organised and co-ordinated by English Heritage.
The event is usually held on the second weekend of September. The dates for 2009 were 10–13 September.
London stages a separate event, Open House London, which usually takes place the following weekend, the third weekend of September.
Famous quotes containing the words heritage, open and/or days:
“The heritage of the American Revolution is forgotten, and the American government, for better and for worse, has entered into the heritage of Europe as though it were its patrimony—unaware, alas, of the fact that Europe’s declining power was preceded and accompanied by political bankruptcy, the bankruptcy of the nation-state and its concept of sovereignty.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“And open field, through which the pathway wound,
And homeward led my steps. Magnificent
The morning rose, in memorable pomp,
Glorious as e’er I had beheld—in front,
The sea lay laughing at a distance; near,
The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds,
Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
—Bible: Hebrew Exodus, 20:8-11.
The fourth commandment.