Heritage Open Days – September 2026 – Bideford and River Torridge Heritage Harbour

Heritage Open Days – September 2026

Heritage Open Days (HOD) will take place between 11 – 20 September 2026

The theme for 2026 is: based around the everyday histories of working lives: the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker – what did your ancestors do? From factory floors to kitchen counters, school desks to sailors’ docks, serving halls to vegetable gardens. The daily routines of different jobs, the skills required, the people that did them and the places that housed them all.

BARTH are working with partners to develop two themes:

A Bridgeland Street Bideford Open Day and Shipyard Trail Bideford to Appledore

Watch this space for more information

Heritage Open days 2025

Bideford & River Torridge Heritage Harbour coordinated 17 events in and around Bideford over the Heritage Open Days Festival 12-21 September 2025: 2 exhibitions with associated talks, 3 guided walks, 9 open day events and 1 public unveiling of a memorial plaque. There were in excess of 380 visits to all events. This is visits not separate visitors as many people took the opportunity to visit several events, especially when they were situated close to each other. It was not possible to collect complete visitor numbers for each event, especially the exhibitions open over several days.

Full Report: Heritage Open Days 2025 in and around Bideford.

HOD 2025 report compressed Download

Details and programme for Heritage Open Days 2025:

Working with our partners Bideford & River Torridge Heritage Harbour have prepared a programme of events celebrating heritage in Bideford and surrounding area.