All 44 events are free and 28 need no booking at all. Saturday 12 September is the busiest day, with 23 Medway venues open. One session has already sold out.
Heritage Open Days runs in Medway from Friday 11 to Sunday 20 September, and the official listing carries 44 events. Every one is free.
Medway Council published the programme on Tuesday. The full listings sit on the festival’s own Medway area list, which is where the detail below comes from.
The single most useful fact is buried in that listing. Twenty-eight of the 44 need no booking at all. You turn up.
Saturday 12 September is by far the biggest day
Count the opening times entry by entry and the ten days are nothing like each other. The first Saturday has 23 events open. The following Monday has two.
Day by day, the counts run 7, 23, 9, 2, 3, 8, 7, 7, 15 and 10, from Friday 11 September to Sunday 20 September. The four weekend days carry 57 of the 91 openings between them.
If you can only get out once, make it Saturday 12 September. Open that day, all without booking:
- the Six Poor Travellers’ House on Rochester High Street, 10am to 2pm. It has been shut to the public for years and there are plans to reopen it as a museum in 2027. This is one day only
- Temple Manor in Strood, 11am to 3pm
- the Huguenot Museum in Rochester, 11am to 4pm, last entry 3.30pm
- Chatham Masonic Hall on Manor Road, 11am to 4pm. Its own listing promises “no question will go unanswered”
- the French Hospital at La Providence, Rochester, 10am to 4pm
- Hoo St Werburgh church, 10am to 4pm, with cream teas in the afternoon
- the medieval Bridge Chapel on Rochester Esplanade, 11am to 4pm
The 13 that need booking, and one that has already gone
These are the ones to sort out now rather than on the day. Places are capped, in some cases at ten people.
| Event | When | Cap or note |
|---|---|---|
| Mixed Media Still Life, morning, Medway Adult Education, Rochester | Fri 11 Sep, 10am to 12pm | Fully booked |
| Mixed Media Still Life, afternoon, Rochester | Fri 11 Sep, 1pm to 3pm | |
| The Mystery of Edwin Drood tour, from the Dickens chalet | 12 Sep 2.30pm, 13 Sep 11am, 19 Sep 11am, 20 Sep 2.30pm | 60 to 90 minutes |
| Docking Station open day, Historic Dockyard | Wed 16 Sep, 10am, 11.30am and 2pm | Max 12; booking closes 10 Sep |
| Working life on the River Medway: John Oliver, Medway Archives, Strood | Wed 16 Sep, 2pm to 3pm | |
| Everyday Histories, University of Greenwich, Chatham | Wed 16 Sep, 5.30pm to 7.30pm | Max 100 |
| Brook Theatre hard hat tours, Chatham | Wed 16, Thu 17, Fri 18 Sep, 11am and 1pm | Six tours in total; aged 11+ |
| Royal Engineers Museum guided tour, Gillingham | Thu 17 Sep, 5pm to 6pm | |
| Ship Model Store behind the scenes, No.1 Smithery, Chatham | Fri 18 Sep, 11am, 1pm and 3pm | |
| Cliffe Pools heritage walk, RSPB Cliffe Pools | Fri 18 Sep, 10am start | Max 10; booking closes 16 Sep |
| Chatham House and the Lion Brewery talk, Rochester | Fri 18 Sep, 7pm to 9pm | |
| Commissioner’s House taster tour, Historic Dockyard | Sat 19 Sep, 12pm, 1pm and 2pm | Max 10; booking closes 17 Sep |
| Light Vessel 21, Fusionists: Experiment 2, Anchor Wharf, Chatham | Sat 19 and Sun 20 Sep, 12pm to 2pm |
Three more take booking but do not insist on it:
- the SANGAT workshop at Medway Little Theatre, 12 September
- Stories of belonging at Chatham Library, 12 September
- the Rochester Corn Exchange free tour, 18 September
The Commissioner’s House ticket is worth more than it looks
Book the Commissioner’s House taster tour and you get more than half an hour indoors. The listing states that the Heritage Open Day ticket “entitles you to free access to The Historic Dockyard Chatham for the day, as well as the 30 minute tour of Commissioner’s House”.
The house was built in 1704 for Captain George St Lo and was the Dockyard Commissioner’s official residence. The listing describes a 13 month, £3.8m restoration and a new orangery built to bring visitors closer to the ceiling painting taken from HMS Royal Sovereign. Tours are capped at ten people and booking closes on 17 September.
Two others are unusually hard to get into in a normal year:
- the Brook Theatre in Chatham is a live building site. The 1899 building, Chatham Town Hall until the 1960s, is mid restoration, and the six tours cover the foyers, staircase, main auditorium, former council chamber and what the organisers call the once hidden ornate tiled Mayor’s loo. Hard hats and PPE are provided, flat enclosed footwear is compulsory, and nobody under 11 can go. Cllr Nina Gurung, portfolio holder for heritage, culture and leisure, said the Brook Theatre tours sell out “incredibly quickly”
- Upnor Castle opens 12pm to 3pm on 19 and 20 September with no booking. Parking is free, roughly 20 spaces shared with the village, 200 metres from the entrance down a cobbled street. Picnics are welcome in the grounds; dogs other than assistance dogs are not
New this year
Medway Towns Gurdwara Sabha on Lankester Parker Road, Rochester, opens on Friday 11 September, 12pm to 4pm, capped at 100 people. Rob Flood, the local area co-ordinator for Heritage Open Days, said he was “delighted that the Medway Gurdwara is joining this year for the first time”.
Visitors are asked to remove shoes and cover their heads, head coverings are provided, and shorts, skirts and crop tops are not permitted. Vegetarian food and drink is free to all visitors.
What it means for you
- The festival runs 11 to 20 September and everything on the Medway list is free
- 28 of the 44 need no booking. Just turn up in the opening hours
- Book the other 13 now. Three are capped at 10 or 12 places, several stop taking bookings days before the event, and one has already sold out
- Saturday 12 September is the day to pick if you are only going once, with 23 events open. Saturday 19 September is next with 15
- Weekdays are thin. Monday 14 September has just two, and both are week-long displays rather than one-off openings
- Check each entry before setting off. The festival asks visitors to do this because organisers can change details late
Eleven of the 23 openings on Saturday 12 September are on or just off Rochester High Street and its Chatham Intra continuation, so they can be walked between. The rest are spread out to Hoo, High Halstow, Halling, the Isle of Grain, Twydall, Strood and Frindsbury. If you do drive, see our guide to parking in Medway. For what else is on across the towns, see things to do in Medway.
Heritage Open Days in Medway is run as part of the Medway Heritage Place programme, a ten year partnership with the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The council says the fund’s Heritage Place initiative will back up to 20 places across the UK with £200 million of investment.
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