Heritage Open Month: behind the scenes of the city

After the massively successful Heritage Open Days (where the city’s finest, most interesting, and curious buildings are opened up to the public), the project’s been extended to an entire month. Hooray.

All through September, Liverpool’s various gems will fling open their doors for guided tours and open days, giving you a chance to have a look around some usually-closed-off architecture and history right through the region.

The array of stuff on offer across the city is pretty exhaustive: from the (recently refurbished) Florence Institute to Martins Bank, Liverpool Masonic Hall (above) to the Port of Liverpool Building, it’s a hugely impressive project, and a must for anyone curious about what goes on behind closed doors. Though many of the buildings are only involved on certain days, it’s still possible to do a bit of a Heritage Open Day crawl: theatres, churches, galleries, and all sorts of other institutions are available for a look around.

There’s a handful of official outdoor trails and walks as part of the month, too. Littoral Heritage Poetry Trail includes site specific poetry, and Lovehistory’s tours (including an Irish tour and pub tour) runs through the best of the city’s past via - what else? - some rather fun street theatre.

Liverpool’s often accused of relying too much on its past, but we approve of big events like this: inclusive, free ways to discover our best bits, and consider how they fit into today’s city. Take a look.

Liverpool Heritage Open Month
Throughout September
Free
www.visitliverpool.com/heritageopenmonth