September: it’s the month of the harvest moon (usually); Vogue’s most celebrated issue; and the dominion of Virgos and Libras. But it’s also when the UK, and much of Europe, opens doors usually closed to the public, with various organisations offering rare and free access to architectural gems, cultural institutions, science hubs, courts, palaces, medieval castles, embassies – and houses that you could never afford to own.
The Open House festival (London), Heritage Open Days (England), Doors Open Days (Scotland), Cadw’s Open Doors (Wales) and European Heritage Open Days (Northern Ireland) have created programmes that celebrate the culture, history and contemporary life of the UK.
Here is a selection of participating venues.
Abbot House, Dunfermline
The oldest secular building in Scotland’s ancient capital, dating back to at least the 16th century and known to local people as “the pink hoose”, Abbot House is a glorious melange of architectural styles: gothic tracery windows; a fresco dated to 1571; a 1990s mural by the celebrated writer and artist Alasdair Gray. The house survived the great fire of Dunfermline in 1624 – and has a lot to show for it.
Awarded more than £600,000 in various grants, the house is reaching the end of a mammoth five-year restoration effort. The building is not generally open to the public yet (and the top floor is reserved for local artists’ studio space), but will be welcoming visitors this weekend. There’s a coffee shop to have a brew in before exploring the inside or taking a stroll around a beautiful walled garden. There will also be activities for the bairns.
20 September, 10am-4pm, no booking required. For more details, click here.
Granada cinema, London
“Miss the Tower of London if you have to, but don’t miss this” is quite the ringing endorsement from an architecture critic, especially if the critic in question was the Observer’s hard-to-please Ian Nairn. This cinema (now, alas, the Buzz bingo hall) from the 1930s is the only Grade I-listed cinema in the UK, and the tenor of its magic is disparate inside and out.
The stunning exterior of the building was designed by Cecil Masey in the art deco style, complete with handsome Corinthian columns. But the vast and splendorous gothic-inspired interior is the work of Russian émigré Theodore Komisarjevsky, a stage and theatre director who had also trained as an architect in St Petersburg. Komisarjevsky whipped up a 150ft-long hall of mirrors, an ornate chandelier hanging from a high, coffered ceiling, and a 58ft-wide proscenium. Frank Sinatra and the Beatles have performed on its stage (sadly not together).
21 September, 10am-12pm, no booking required. For more details, click here.
BFI National Archive, Berkhamsted
Cinephiles and TV-heads are able, for one day only, to delve into one of the largest film and television archives in the world, which is celebrating its 90th birthday. Square-eyed guests will be able to explore the vaults and take a peek at restoration techniques; the process of digital preservation; iconic film posters; and the thinking that goes into collection development. The archive consists mostly of British material, but international work that has contributed significantly to British cultural life is also stored and preserved. A rare opportunity to go behind-the-scenes of the scenes.
For those unable to visit in-person, check out the archive’s meticulous and frequently updated blog (sample entry: securing Tom Cruise’s legacy). Or search the archive online.
21 September, 10.30am-4pm, booking required. For more details, click here.
Royal College of Physicians, London
One of London’s few postwar Grade I-listed buildings, this modernist masterpiece, which opened in 1964, was designed by the luminary of brutalism himself, Denys Lasdun (the architect responsible for the National Theatre, University of East Anglia, and the original headquarters of the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg, among numerous residential structures). Lasdun was awarded a Trustees’ Medal by Riba for his gorgeous design, with the citation that the poured concrete and clean lines of the RCP represented “the best architecture of its time anywhere in the world”.
For those more interested in medicine than architecture, it is hosting an exhibition, A Body of Knowledge, dedicated to 500 years’ worth of medical texts and books charting the history and innovation of the discipline. Visitors are welcome on a drop-in basis, but there will also be guided tours, and activities for kids on a ticketed basis.
20 September, 10am-4pm, drop-in slots or booked tours. For more details, click here.
Laugharne Castle, Laugharne
Fans of Welsh literature might recognise the Carmarthenshire town of Laugharne by one of its most famous residents, the poet Dylan Thomas. The town almost certainly provided the inspiration for the fictional Llareggub in Under Milk Wood. Its eponymous castle, originally built in 1116 as a Norman stronghold, overlooks the estuary of the River Taf. The handsome fortress has been much fought over – literally; it changed hands twice during the English civil war.
In 1730, an adjacent guesthouse was built on the grounds (called, rather unimaginatively, Castle House – not everybody can have Thomas’s way with words). It was here that Thomas wrote his short story collection Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, and author Richard Hughes completed his 1938 novel In Hazard. Thomas once described it as “the best of houses in the best of places”. Unfortunately Castle House itself is now privately owned and the interior is not accessible, but the neighbouring ornamental gardens and the castle which inspired him are.
20 and 21 September, 11am-4pm. No booking required. For more details, click here.
Pear Tree House, London
One might think that a massive 100-year-old pear tree slap bang in the middle of a plot might be somewhat of a hindrance when it comes to building a house, but not for Jake Edgley, owner and architect of this 2015 Riba London award winner. A construction blend of concrete and timber, Edgley’s design preserved the ancient remnant of a Victorian fruit orchard; the tree is now a central feature of a pretty internal courtyard. Floor-to-ceiling windows flood the interior spaces with light, and the house is environmentally friendly and sustainable, built with zero formaldehyde materials and thermodynamic roof panels. Edgley himself will be on hand to show guests around.
20 September, 10am-4.30pm. No booking required. For more details, click here.
Decontamination suite, Greenham air base, Newbury
In what might prove to be prudent preparation given the current state of the world, this is a chance to visit the old decontamination suite at the former US airbase – home to 96 cruise missiles – made famous by the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp. Only one of the few remaining structures, the Control Tower, is usually open to the public, but this weekend the reinforced, blast-proof doors of the decontamination suite are being thrown open. (Well, maybe not thrown.)
The decontamination suite was designed to cleanse personnel exposed to nerve agents in the event of a chemical attack. The suite is apparently not suitable for babies, young children and “people who suffer from claustrophobia”. The nearby control tower itself has a cafe and visitors’ centre.
20 and 21 September, 11am-3pm. No booking required. For more details, click here.
Australia House, London
Aficionados of the top decks of buses who happen to swing by the Strand in central London may have admired this grand, eye-catching Grade II-listed building before. The Australian flag might give away its purpose as the home of the country’s high commission – but it was also once the Gringotts Wizarding Bank in the Harry Potter films, thanks to its breathtaking beaux-arts inspired interiors (grandiose staircase, opulent patterned-marble finishes, classical pillars).
Designed by a pair of father and son architects, construction began on the building in 1913, but the small matter of the first world war delayed completion, and it was eventually opened by King George V in 1918. Australia House also serves as the largest polling station in Australia’s federal elections – more votes are cast here than any station in Australian states or territories.
For obvious reasons the building isn’t usually open to the public, and visitors will have to bring a government-issued form of ID to enter.