Fifteen Bromsgrove district venues open free from 11 September, including the Bilberry Hill gun range and Dodford Children's Farm. Two need booking first.

Fifteen Bromsgrove district venues open their doors free of charge from Friday 11 September, and two of them will not let you in unless you book first.

The festival runs to Sunday 20 September. Bromsgrove District Council published its programme on 3 September, and the full listings are in the council’s Bromsgrove and Redditch booklet. Heritage Open Days is run nationally by the National Trust and returns 11 to 20 September 2026 across England.

The programme is heavily weighted to the end. Eight venues open on Saturday 19 September and seven on Sunday 20, against one or two on most weekdays. Nothing at all is on in the district on Monday 14 or Thursday 17 September.

Bar chart of Bromsgrove district Heritage Open Days venues open on each day from 11 to 20 September 2026, showing 8 on Saturday 19 and 7 on Sunday 20 and none on Monday 14 or Thursday 17
Counts each venue once per day it opens. Source: Bromsgrove District Council Heritage Open Days 2026 booklet. Graphic by Bromsgrove News.

This year’s theme is Everyday Histories: working lives rather than grand ones. It suits this district, and several venues have built their displays around it. Sidemoor is putting on a day about nailmakers and button makers. Stoke Prior is showing memorabilia from the Salt Works, the Brush Works and Garringtons.

Book these two, or you will not get in

Most events are turn-up-on-the-day. Two are not.

  • Dodford Children’s Farm, Warbage Lane, Dodford B61 9BE. Open 3.30pm to 5.30pm on Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 September, marking the charity’s 75th anniversary. Booking is essential by email to info@dodfordfarm.co.uk with the full names of everyone coming. Booking closes on 11 September.
  • Free genealogy workshop, Bromsgrove Library, Parkside, Market Street B61 8DA. Friday 11 September, 10.30am to 11.30am, led by a local genealogist. Places are limited and must be pre-booked on 01905 822722.

The Tardebigge Wharf walks do not need booking, but each walk takes a maximum of 15 people, so turning up early matters.

Every Bromsgrove district event, by date

Friday 11 to Sunday 13 and Friday 18 to Sunday 20 September, 10am to 4pm

  • The Norton Collection Museum, 26 Birmingham Road, B61 0DD. One man’s lifetime collection of Bromsgrove memorabilia: the Bromsgrove Guild, railways, nails, glass, buttons, hardware, Garringtons, the Court Leet, and two streets of Edwardian shops. A lift reaches the first floor displays. Contact on the day 07586 157451.

Friday 11 September

  • Genealogy workshop, Bromsgrove Library, 10.30am to 11.30am. Pre-book.

Saturday 12 September

  • All Saints Church, 6 Burcot Lane, B60 1AF, 10am to 4pm. Bromsgrove Guild work, stained glass, and an exhibition on the model laundry and cycle works at Blackmore Mill on the Spadesbourne Brook.
  • Sidemoor Heritage Day at NewSong Community Church, Broad Street, B61 8LW, 10am to 4pm. The everyday lives of nailmakers and button makers. The hand-wrought nail trade was established in Sidemoor by the mid-1700s; Benjamin Sanders’ button factory opened at the former Sidemoor Mill in the 1820s. No parking on the shoppers’ car parks for this event.
  • St John’s Church, Kidderminster Road, B61 7JW. Cake and coffee concert at 10.30am, about 50 minutes, with the Orchestra of St John playing Mozart’s “A Musical Joke” and Haydn’s Symphony No. 60. The open day follows, 11.30am to 3pm, with audio-guide tours, a children’s key hunt and, weather permitting, a climb up the tower to see the bells. Free concert parking at Woodland House, Church Lane, B61 8RA.

Tuesday 15 September

  • The Greenhouse at Barnes Close, Chadwich Manor Estate, Chadwich B61 0RA, 10am to 4pm. Built in 1930 for Henry Cadbury. It housed a Salvation Army children’s home evacuated from Southend-on-Sea during the Second World War. The house is not visible from the road: look for the banner at Malthouse Lane.

Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 September

  • Dodford Children’s Farm, 3.30pm to 5.30pm. Pre-book by 11 September.

Saturday 19 September

  • Bromsgrove Baptist Church, New Road, B60 2JD, 10am to 4pm. Three hundred and sixty years of the congregation, thirty-two pastors, and the initials of Sunday School children in the hall bricks from 1888. The church would like help identifying them.
  • St Chad’s Rubery, New Road, B45 9JA, 10am to 3pm. The 1959 church was designed by Richard Twentyman and listed Grade II in 2025. A talk on Twentyman’s architecture runs 11am to 12pm, and one on the church’s history 1.30pm to 2pm.

Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September

  • Avoncroft Museum of Buildings, Redditch Road, Stoke Heath, B60 4JR, 10am to 4pm. Free entry to 19 acres, free site tours at 10.30am and 12pm each day, and a free heritage bus between Bromsgrove station and the museum. The working windmill sails if there is wind; the miniature train is £1 all weekend. Food, drink and the art exhibition are paid-for.
  • Lickey Hills Heritage Weekend, the Country Park Visitor Centre, Warren Lane, Lickey B45 8ER, 11am to 4pm. The Warren Lane quarry, normally closed, opens with guides explaining the First World War Bilberry Hill gun proof range and the geology. Also on show: maps of the area’s First World War dead, the Rubery Hill Asylum burials in Lickey church, and an 1840 tithe map. Guided walks on the Lickeys in both wars run 11.30am to 1pm on the Saturday and 1.30pm to 3pm on the Sunday; a geology walk runs 11am to 12.30pm on the Sunday. Walks last an hour and a half to two hours over uneven, often muddy ground, and are not wheelchair accessible.
  • Stoke Prior and Worcestershire memorabilia at St Michael and All Angels, Hanbury Road, Stoke Prior B60 4JT, 10am to 4pm. A Grade I listed church whose nave, chancel and north aisle date from the 12th century, restored in the 1890s with money from salt works owner John Corbett. The display includes a 1927 large-scale Ordnance Survey map of the area.
  • Tardebigge Wharf guided local history walk, Church Lane, Tardebigge B60 3AH. Walks at 10am, 11.30am, 1pm and 2.30pm, about an hour, 15 people maximum. This is the summit of the longest narrow lock flight in Britain. Guides from the Worcester Birmingham and Droitwich Canals Society and the Canal and River Trust cover the quarries, lime kilns, rail tracks and the site of the experimental boat lift. Trips through the tunnel on the charity narrowboat Cecilia carry a small charge.
  • Christ Church, Catshill, Stourbridge Road, B61 9LH. Saturday 10am to 4pm, Sunday 11am to 4pm after the 10am service. The 187-year-old church has connections to the poet A. E. Housman and to Christopher Morcom, the childhood friend of Alan Turing. It is fundraising for a new chancel roof and to replace a stone cross brought down in the winter gales.

Sunday 20 September

  • A Musical Heritage Concert at Avoncroft Museum, Guesten Hall, 12pm and 2pm. About 45 minutes, with The Singing Villeins and the Family Jazz Band.
  • St John’s Church, Hagley, top of Hall Drive, DY9 9LQ, 1pm to 5pm. Visitors can chime one of the bells. Allow at least 30 minutes. Ringers must be able to climb a spiral staircase unaided and have free use of both arms. Parties of six or more should contact the organiser to arrange another time. Hagley is about seven miles north west of Bromsgrove town.
  • A Musical Heritage Concert at Christ Church, Catshill, 4pm. The same performers, about 45 minutes, closing the open day.

What it means for you

Everything above is free to enter. The costs are the miniature train at Avoncroft (£1), refreshments, and the narrowboat trips at Tardebigge.

Three practical points:

  • Two events need booking, and one deadline falls before the festival opens. Dodford closes bookings on 11 September; the library workshop is on 11 September.
  • Check before travelling. The council states its own booklet was correct at the time of printing, and that not every local event is necessarily in it. The national visiting pages carry the live list.
  • Parking is the weak point at three venues. Sidemoor asks visitors not to use the shoppers’ car parks. St John’s is up a steep hill with limited blue badge spaces. Lickey Hills is free at present, but the booklet warns charges are expected and points to Birmingham City Council for the latest position, because the Country Park is run by Birmingham, not Bromsgrove. Our parking guide covers the council car parks in town, and the roadworks and travel page has what is shut this week.

Anyone visiting three or more venues can enter the council’s Heritage Hunters competition by completing its survey. Entrants must be 18 or over.

Sources