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Over 15 events throughout Halesworth - Talks & Walks - Tours - Exhibitions - Activities - Open days 11th - 18th September 2025 ALL FREE!

Welcome to the 2025 Halesworth Heritage Open Days

For the 10th year, Halesworth offers you a packed programme of events exploring its cultural and historic heritage, something for everyone, to excite your curiosity and learn about the town.

Please note that all ticketed events are available to book via The Cut from 14 August to 11 September. Please visit www.thecut.org.uk/whatson or pop in.

Scan the QR code to find Halesworth’s events on the

THURSDAY 11th & 18th SEPTEMBER

EXHIBITION

Halesworth Cemetery Chapel

10am-2pm

Halesworth Cemetery, Holton Road, Halesworth, IP19 8HD

The restored cemetery chapel will be open and the burial register database (18551918) will be available if visitors wish to check on ancestors buried in the cemetery. Organised by Halesworth u3a Family History group. Following a visit to the chapel, visitors are free to explore the cemetery.

ACCESS: Dogs welcome, no toilets, wheelchair accessible. parking available.

CONTACT: Kevin Wooldridge 07986 041443

FRIDAY 12th SEPTEMBER

EXHIBITION/DROP-IN Halesworth History Database and Cemetery Records

10am-12 & 1pm-3pm

The Magickal Emporium, 1 Market Place, Halesworth, IP19 8BA

A drop-in session to see ‘work-in-progress’ on building the ‘Halesworth History Map’ which is showing the relationships between the people of this Suffolk market town, their life events, where they lived and worked, and the businesses that traded here.

Simon Parker has been building a database of people, buildings and businesses over the last 9 months, with a view to it being available on computers within the study room of the Halesworth & District Museum (and eventually to the wider community via a website).

Kevin Wooldridge is a local archaeologist and genealogist who has researched the burial records of Halesworth Cemetery from 1850 to 1918, with insight to the social history of the town in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

ACCESS: Steps from the street into the Emporium, and within.

CONTACT: Simon Parker 07742 123998 or halesworth. history.map@gmail.com

GUIDED WALK

Heritage Tree Walk

11am - Friday 12th & Saturday 13th

Meet at the entrance to Halesworth Town Park TICKET ONLY 3

Originally surveyed and defined by Richard Woolnough, then Halesworth In Bloom, these are the among the oldest and most spectacular trees of our town. Many are in the Cemetery, some on private land and common footpaths, some are in need of our protection. Some we may have just walked by without noticing. They range from Veteran to Maiden, from old coppice Hornbeam to delicate Ash. This is based on the first Heritage Tree Walk done in 2019, and encompasses some new recently protected TPO trees.

ACCESS: Not wheelchair accessible

CONTACT: Rachel Kellett 079200 55888. Tickets via www.thecut.org.uk

SATURDAY 13th

GUIDED WALK

Halesworth

Transport History Guided Walk

10am-12.30

Saxons Way Middle Car Park, Halesworth IP19 8BF. From Thoroughfare, the Car Park is behind the White Hart pub 5

Volunteers from the Halesworth to Southwold Narrow Gauge Railway Charity will lead a guided walk from the Middle Car Park, between Saxons Way and Thoroughfare, through the Town Park into Halesworth Millennium Green. The walk will take approximately one and a half hours, and will end at the award-winning Halesworth Museum, where you can see a film about the railway, and also the station’s unique platforms, which used to open!

ACCESS: This walk is not suitable for those in wheelchairs or with limited mobility, as access to the railway is steep and has loose gravel. Dogs allowed.

EXHIBITION/OPEN DAY

Conversion of the Methodist Church

10am-4pm

CONTACTS: Paul & Shirley Taylor 01986 873627. www.halesworthtosouthwoldrailway.co.uk 7

EXHIBITION

Old Halesworth

Buildings Digital

Slideshow

Open every Tues & Thurs 10-12:30pm Weds, Fri & Sat 10am to 4pm Halesworth & District Museum, The Station, Halesworth IP19 8BZ 6

Patrick Stead Day Care Centre, London Road, Halesworth IP19 8LR

Friends of Halesworth Community Health and Care will open its doors and present a history of the former Methodist Church dating back to 1877 and how it successfully acquired and has repurposed the building into a modern fit for purpose day care facility with ancillary office space for Halesworth Volunteers. Exhibitions will be on display on how the building has played a part in Halesworth for over century and how it is now serving the needs of Halesworth and local parishes.

ACCESS: Wheelchair access ground floor only CONTACT: Alan Witherby 01986 873339

TOUR

Lodge of Prudence

10am-2pm

Market Place, Halesworth IP19 8BB

An opportunity to visit the Masonic Hall. The Lodge of Prudence has been meeting in the current building since 1880 which contains a number of interesting artefacts.

ACCESS: Access is by a steep staircase. CONTACT: Graham Francis 07930 834650.

There will be a digital slideshow demonstrating some of Halesworth’s finest old buildings and some which are no longer there. If you haven’t been to the Museum, or have not visited recently,do come along a see the latest batch of our remarkable gold Iron Age coins, a new exhibition on the Second World War, and the display on sustenance and food in the Town, and some interesting recent additions to our collection.

ACCESS: Parking at the Train Station including blue badge holder. CONTACT: www.halesworthmuseum.org.uk

VARIOUS

St Mary’s Church

10am-4pm St Mary’s Church, Steeple End, Halesworth IP19 8LL

EXHIBITION

Walpole Old Chapel

10.30am-4.30pm

Sat 13th & Sat 20th Sept 9

10am-12pm Repair Café: dealing with electrical items, sewing machines and blade sharpening.

10am-4pm Exhibitions: Art and photography displays from Bungay High School and Halesworth Camera Club; ‘Bee-keeping at Halesworth Area School in the 1950s’; a miscellany of images.

10am-4pm Bell Ringing: Tower bell ringers offering bell-ringing and teaching sessions and trips up the tower.

2pm Talk: Talk by Keith Noakes entitled ‘The A Bee C of Beekeeping’ and illustrated with the aid of a replica beehive.

3pm Talk: Talk by Alan Greening, the church architect, entitled ‘Historic Buildings of Halesworth’.

ACCESS: Well-behaved dogs allowed. Wheelchair access. Refreshments. CONTACT: friendsofstmarys@talktalk.net

TOUR

Walpole Old Chapel, Halesworth Road, Walpole IP19 9AZ

Walpole Old Chapel is undergoing major repairs this year, which reveal exactly how it was built. The building was converted c1690 from a farmhouse to the unique chapel we still see today. We don’t think an Architect ever went near this conversion. Rather, it was carried out by local carpenters, blacksmiths and builders, using the techniques they had learnt from their forebears. The architectural style is, therefore, ‘vernacular’. And, as a lot of the conversion work involved re-use of older timber, the Chapel has a very home-made look about it. View the exhibition showing what was found when the contractors stripped the old render and laths from the West side of the building and how it is now being repaired with appropriate, traditional materials and techniques. Knowledgeable guides will be on hand to explain further.

ACCESS: Wheelchair accessible, toilets, parking. CONTACT: 01986 784348

The Cut - from Maltings to Arts Centre

Tours at 11am, 12.30pm & 2pm The Cut, 8 New Cut, Halesworth IP19 8BY

Simon Raven will take visitors on a tour of The Cut to show how it was originally built at the end of the C19th as one of the first of a new breed of ‘vertical’ maltings which began to replace the traditional ‘horizontal’ maltings as exemplified by the one (now converted into residences) just off Saxons Way. The tour includes the ‘MALT Experience’ room and a showing of an animated film of how the building was designed to process locally grown barley into malt. Please meet Simon in the Cut’s Concourse.

ACCESS: Wheelchair accessible. CONTACT: www.thecut.org.uk

SATURDAY 13th SEPTEMBER

TOUR OF HOUSE Bank House - a home with a history

Saturday 13th - 11am, 2pm & 4pm

Sunday 14th - 11am, 2pm & 4pm

Each tour is approximately 90 minutes.

Tickets available in advance only via www.thecut.org.uk

GUIDED WALK

Discovering Quay Street

TICKET ONLY 12 6

Bank House, 35 Thoroughfare, Halesworth IP19 8LE

A fine Georgian building constructed in 1760s as a pair with the adjoining Georgian House. The Tithe map of 1577 marks the well which still exists in the cellar today.

Bank House has long banking and quaker connections, in 1782 the bank Gurneys and Co opened its first branch in Halesworth, which in 1855 became Barclays Bank, then Barclays purchased two adjoining Cottages to create an impressive Banking Hall also removing 7 rooms from Bank House. David and Hugh purchased Barclays Bank when it closed in 2018 starting the reinstatement in 2019 (at the height of the Pandemic), the works were completed in just over 3 years including the reinstatement of the 7 rooms previously lost when they were demolished by Barclays to extend Barclays Banking Hall in 1855.

ACCESS: Toilets available, uneven floors and steps, no wheelchair access.

CONTACT: David Blyth 07836 512176

11am-12.30pm

Halesworth Museum, Station Road, Halesworth IP19 8BZ

Tickets via www.thecut.org.uk

Members of Halesworth U3A Local History Group will lead a walk from Halesworth Station through Quay Street, which is historically and architecturally fascinating and a significant part of Halesworth’s brewing and malting industrial past.

The walk begins outside Halesworth Museum on Station Road. Quay Street in Halesworth was one of its most important streets, as a means of access to the railway and ways of transporting merchandise and people. It takes its name from the wharf or quay where a canal from the river Blyth terminated. Architecturally it is very significant with its maltings buildings, old police station, Georgian terraces and Hooker House (the home of the distinguished botanist Joseph Hooker). Using historical photographs this fascinating area of the town is brought to life.

ACCESS: Uneven pavements. Appropriate footwear recommended.

CONTACT: Lisa Hyde 07950 980641

Please book via www.thecut.org.uk

SUNDAY 14th SEPTEMBER

OPEN DAY

Open Day at Blythburgh Station

10.30am - 3.45pm

Blythburgh Station, Station Road, Blythburgh IP19 9LQ. Off A12, opposite White Hart pub. Car parking near the church.

ACCESS: Dogs allowed, toilets available, wheelchair access to most areas. Parking for Blue Badge holders only – outside Village Hall.

CONTACTS: Ken Penrose 07969 318415, Ian Reed 07807 542212, James Hewett 07379 789665. www.halesworthtosouthwoldrailway.co.uk 15

The Halesworth to Southwold Narrow Gauge Railway Charity have been restoring – from complete dereliction - the historic 1879 Blythburgh Station since 2020. Come and see the progress: see freight trains shunting, and meet the volunteers. Model railway show, and refreshments in the Village Hall. Displays, souvenirs, and guided tours. Event part of “Railway 200” & National Heritage Open Days Free entry, free tea, coffee and home-made cake.

TRANSPORT: Halesworth Hoppa bus provided from Halesworth Middle Car Park (Saxons’ Way) at 11am and 1pm, returning from Blythburgh at 1.30pm and 4pm.