TV personality Loyd Grossman has launched “the world’s greatest heritage festival”.
He is urging visitors to get out and about and “treasure your treasures” at 5,000 free events taking place across England during Heritage Open Days between September 8 and 11.
“Treasure Your Treasures” is the theme for this year’s annual four-day festival, which calls on communities to champion their local heritage and show their support for cultural and historic assets on their doorsteps.
Visitors are encouraged to capture themselves on camera with the objects, people or places that they treasure and to share their stories online via social media using the hashtag #TreasureYourTreasures.
Specially made Heritage Open Days frames will be positioned in each region at some of the free events for people to put themselves in the picture together with or in front of their treasures.
The “treasures” theme comes following the results of a straw poll by Heritage Open Days, which showed that 95 per cent of Heritage Open Days organisers had fears about the future of places like museums, galleries, archives, theatres, parks and historic sites in their own communities, which may be facing financial uncertainty.
Loyd Grossman said the 5,000 free events held during the festival provided the ideal platform to stand up and shout about local treasures.
He encouraged people to engage with heritage as visitors and volunteers, and to get behind campaigns to retain access to places like museums, archives, libraries, galleries, theatres, parks and historic sites.
In the last 22 years, Heritage Open Days has grown from 701 events to more than 4,800 in 2015 with some 3.4 million visitors enjoying free-to-access events and activities over four days in September.
The database for this year’s festival including venues, dates and times of events is now live at www.heritageopendays.org.uk.