About the Loughborough Heritage Open Weekend 2024

In my guest blog post this week, Jill Vincent, co-ordinator of the Loughborough Heritage Open Weekend, explains what this weekend in September is all about and how it came to be!

The Loughborough Heritage Open Weekend,

14th & 15th September 2024 

Jill Vincent, co-ordinator

Loughborough has a long and well-documented history: for example, we are mentioned in the Domesday Book; royal permission was granted to our Thursday Market and Fair in 1221; the Bell Foundry originated in the C14, and the Taylor family took over in 1784; the Industrial Revolution in textiles and engineering brought a rapid increase in population along with necessary education and training.

Loughborough’s built environment evidences our fascinating history and heritage. Vigorous local voluntary and community bodies support this heritage and meet in a Forum (organised by two members of the Loughborough Library Local Studies Volunteer Group (LLLSVG)) twice a year to update and exchange information, offer mutual support and cooperate.

Members of the Forum realised that many, individually, held Open Days as part of the national programme of Heritage Open Days (HOD) organised by the National Trust every September.  HODs give free entry to buildings that might not normally be open to public view.  Members who already held Open Days thought that if they collaborated and enlisted others to join them, the Loughborough offer would be so much greater - and indeed it is!

So, we have organised: 

Loughborough Heritage Open Weekend, 14th & 15th September 2024.

Twelve sites are taking part. They are:

• All Saints with Holy Trinity Parish Church
• Fearon Hall
• Carillon Museum, Military Memorabilia Roadshow
• Charnwood Museum
• Garendon Park
• The Generator Loughborough
• Loughborough Central Station (Great Central Railway)
• Loughborough Grammar School
• Loughborough Library Local Studies Volunteer Group (guided walks)
• Old Rectory Museum
• Taylor’s Bellfoundry 
• Unity House

Visitors will be able to explore places that give an insight and experience of Loughborough’s history and heritage. Local enthusiasts will guide and inform and we believe that people will make exciting discoveries – not least because they may come to visit a familiar place and at the same time find somewhere new and unknown to them. We will be highly visible, with HOD bunting and banners. 

To find out more, visit the Heritage Open Days website and search for Loughborough Heritage Open Weekend, or click here for LHOW results. There are also a couple of other events that come up if you search the HODs site for Charnwood!

And please note that some of the sites do need to be pre-booked. All details are on the website. Do be sure to check.

We look forward to seeing you over the LHOW - remember - 14th and 15th September 2024!!

____________________________________

About Jill Vincent

Jill’s career has combined her interest in the arts with work teaching and researching social policy, and active engagement in politics and the voluntary and community sector.

Jill studied fine art at St Martins, then had a break for children and family. She returned to study at Loughborough Uni (Sociology and Political Science) and gained her PhD from Nottingham Uni.

She worked for the Open University and as a researcher at the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) at Loughborough Uni. Jill’s employment and commitment to social issues complemented each other nicely. She was a Borough Councillor for 16 years, spending the final year as Mayor; she has been a Trustee at John Storer Charnwood and Equality Action (where she is still actively involved) and a Governor at Loughborough College (where she is now a co-opted member).

Jill’s interest in the arts is a thread running through her life. She worked in Arts in Prisons research and provision, and with Kevin Ryan at Charnwood Arts. She was a member of ACE East Midlands Arts Board, and was awarded an Honorary Degree by Loughborough University in 2012.

All of Jill’s experience, but that particularly in arts and heritage, has led her to take on the role of local co-ordinator for Loughborough’s heritage offering during the national Heritage Open Days event 2024. Jill will be around in person at The Generator, on the Loughborough Heritage Open Weekend (LHOW) 14th – 15th September, so do drop by and visit (pre-booking essential), and if not, she hopes you will enjoy the other LHOW offerings.

____________________________________

Please note, the views expressed in this Guest Blog Post are the views of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the blog owner, lynneaboutloughborough.

Please use this blog's search facility to find related posts, e.g. Unity House, the Old Rectory, Loughborough Grammar School, etc..

____________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, or in the case of guest blogposts, with the named Guest Blogger. However, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Vincent, Jill (2024). About the Loughborough Heritage Open Weekend! Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2024/09/about-loughborough-heritage-open.html [Accessed 1 September 2024]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

site: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/ “Radmoor House”

NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne