Nineteen of Chesham’s historic venues will be open to all in a celebration of our local heritage, including sites not normally open to the public.

Organised by the Chesham Society and Chesham Town Council, this year has strong themes of faith and recreation.

You can visit the belfry of St. Mary’s Church and discover the graffiti hiding in plain sight within the church!

The United Reformed Church in The Broadway is celebrating 300 years of worship on site with a cream tea and history display. The late-Georgian Friends Meeting House, the Mosque and Hearse House in the cemetery, all on Bellingdon Road, will also be welcoming visitors.

In terms of leisure and recreation, England’s oldest tennis club, Chesham 1879, will have a display of historic artefacts, and visitors can have a go at tennis, squash and padel.

The George Piggin allotments in the Old Town were the site of the original workhouse gardens, and they will be open along with the Cameron Road allotments, founded in 1910, where delicious homemade refreshments will be on offer.

We are celebrating a new chapter in the history of the Temperance Hall, founded in 1852, as it is welcomed into The Elgiva family, with music, free activities for children and a historic display.  

Chesham Museum are running a free walk covering 4,000 years of Chesham heritage and

many other aspects of Chesham life will be represented at individual sites, with industrial heritage at Kevin Meayers Organ Builders and Workaid; civic life in a celebration of 50 years of Chesham Town Council at the Town Hall; and how the poor were cared for through history, with the opening of Weedons Alms Houses garden (celebrating 400 years this year) and Weylands House, the old town workhouse.

Once you’ve managed all that, you’ll deserve a drink – so why not pop along to Vault 17 cocktail bar? It’s one of the newest venues on the High Street, but will have a display explaining the retail heritage of the building. To discover all of the Chesham venues, visit www.heritageopendays.org.uk.

There will be a vintage bus service operating from The Broadway and running to Amersham, to enable you to explore further afield. 

Liam Montgomery, Heritage Open Days Marketing & Projects Manager says: “The scale and diversity of Heritage Open Days is just incredible – every year thousands of passionate people help visitors to make doorstep discoveries and connect with history and heritage in every part of England.

This year though, it will be extra special as we celebrate three decades worth of stories and all the brilliant people and places that have made it, and continue to make it, all possible!”