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What does it take to care for an ancient stone wall? How do conservators decide what to repair, which materials to use and how to protect the surviving fabric? This October, there is an opportunity to discover the skills behind the work at two of Tavistock’s historic abbey buildings. Tavistock Heritage Trust is working with specialist conservation contractor DBR Limited to offer four free engagement and skills-learning sessions on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 October, as part of

What did children do before iPads and Disney+? This Saturday, we’re offering something rather different: the chance to get your hands dirty with 1,000 years of Tavistock history! As part of Tavistock Heritage Open Days 2026, our brilliant Discovery Team will be taking over the historic Guildhall Courtroom on Saturday 19 September, with a morning of FREE hands-on activities especially designed for primary-aged children and their families. And the good news is that we've made i

Walk through Tavistock town centre today and you’ll see cafés, shops, banks and businesses. But what if the windows could take you backwards? During Heritage Open Days 2026, they can. Windows in Time transforms Tavistock town centre into an open-air exhibition, using 48 shop windows to reveal what those businesses and buildings looked like, and what they were used for, in years gone by. There’s no ticket to book and no particular time to arrive. Simply pick up the trail, head

The Morley Consort comes to Tavistock this Thursday, and Heritage Open Days visitors can attend FREE. One of the pleasures of Heritage Open Days is discovering something unexpected, and this week we have a rather special addition to A Thousand Years of Tavistock in Ten Days. On Thursday 17 September at 18:00, the young early-music ensemble The Morley Consort will perform Of Still and Loud Noise at St Eustachius’ Parish Church, Tavistock. The concert was not part of our origin

One of the ancient gilded stones Sometimes the smallest objects can tell the biggest stories. Hidden among the books, pictures and historic artefacts of the Tavistock Subscription Library are two small fragments of carved stone. They are easily held in the hand, but their story may stretch back more than six centuries, to the great medieval Abbey that once dominated Tavistock. And during Heritage Open Days 2026, visitors will have a rare opportunity to see them. NO NEED TO BO

Today, seeing women serving at every level of the police service is entirely unremarkable. Just over a century ago, the idea of a woman police officer was anything but. For this year's Tavistock Heritage Open Days, former police officer, author and police historian Simon Dell MBE returns to the Guildhall Courtroom with The Fair Arm of the Law: The Pioneering Women Who Changed British Policing. It is the remarkable story of the women who challenged convention, prejudice and so

What could a pair of shoes possibly tell us about life in West Devon more than two centuries ago? Poverty. Family. Illegitimacy. Work. Education. Opportunity. And, above all, the lives of people who rarely found their way into the history books. With Tavistock Heritage Open Days now just a week away and many of our ticketed events already fully booked, there is still an opportunity to secure a FREE place for one of the talks that perhaps captures this year's theme of Everyday

For more than a thousand years, Tavistock’s skyline has been punctuated by towers, spires and sacred spaces. Long before the canal, the great mining boom or the arrival of the Dukes of Bedford, religion was woven into the everyday life of the town. For Heritage Open Days 2026, local historian and ecclesiastical architecture specialist Sue Spackman has created a brand-new guided walk exploring that remarkable story. And it has a title that is difficult to resist: Where Demons

After a very busy weekend of Heritage Trust activities, there has been a huge spike in ticket sales for this years ticketed events Heritage Open Days 2026 is now only a few weeks away, and our programme of talks, walks, tours and family activities are proving very popular indeed. It looks like all ticketed events will be FULL before the festival starts on September 11th. There will still be plenty to do and see if you can't secure tickets for limited number events. PLEASE BO

What connects an Anglo-Saxon queen, a Victorian police superintendent, a medieval gilded stone, a hidden cemetery chapel, a pair of shoes, a group of apprentice young stonemasons and the scaffolding currently surrounding Betsy Grimbal’s Tower? They are all part of the story we will be telling during Tavistock Heritage Open Days 2026, and you can discover much more in our special new Heritage Open Days Newsletter, out now. Running from 11–20 September, this year’s festival is

What can a pair of shoes tell us about life in West Devon more than two centuries ago? Quite a lot, as it turns out. One of the most intriguing talks in this year's Tavistock Heritage Open Days programme comes from Dr Sue Andrew of the Devonshire Association, who will take us away from kings, abbots and great estates and into the lives of the people who much more rarely appear in our history books. Her wonderfully evocatively titled talk, A Pair of Shoes for a Poor Child, tra

Misdemeanours, accidents, tragedies and some distinctly questionable behaviour. Welcome to Tavistock in the late nineteenth century. On the final Sunday of Heritage Open Days 2026, Tavistock Edge will transform the historic Guildhall Courtroom into a stage for The Superintendent’s Letters, a theatrical journey into the lives of the ordinary people of Tavistock and West Devon. And if you are thinking of coming, don't leave booking too long. More than half the available tickets

After ten days exploring more than a thousand years of Tavistock’s history, what better way could there be to bring Heritage Open Days 2026 to a close than with one of the most joyous and spectacular works in the choral repertoire? On the final evening of the festival, St Eustachius’ Church will provide the magnificent setting for God’s Work: Music from Haydn’s The Creation, performed by the Tavistock Heritage Chorus. And this promises to be much more than simply a closing co

A king murdered at the gates of Corfe Castle. A disputed throne. An ambitious mother. And at the centre of it all, a woman with a direct connection to Tavistock. It sounds more like the plot of a historical thriller than a Heritage Open Days talk. Yet this is the extraordinary story of Ælfthryth, sister of Tavistock Abbey's founder Ordulph and the first crowned and anointed Queen of England. For more than a thousand years, Ælfthryth's reputation has been surrounded by scandal

A Pair of Shoes for a Poor Child - September 15th A Pair of Shoes for a Poor Child When we think about history, it is tempting to think big. Kings and queens. Great buildings. Wars and political upheavals. Famous architects, wealthy landowners and people whose portraits hang on walls. Tavistock certainly has plenty of those stories. But who remembers the child who needed a new pair of shoes? The policeman dealing with the everyday dramas of a changing town? The families who l

Anyone walking along Plymouth Road or past the Bedford Hotel recently can hardly have failed to notice that something is happening at Betsy Grimbal’s Tower. Scaffolding now surrounds one of Tavistock’s most important medieval monuments, specialist stonemasons are at work and, after years of planning, Rediscovering Tavistock Abbey is becoming very visible indeed. But what is actually happening behind all that scaffolding? Conserving a remarkable survivor Betsy Grimbal’s Tower

At first glance, Bannawell Street is easy to overlook. Tucked away between the bustle of Tavistock's town centre and the imposing railway viaduct, it appears to be a quiet residential street with little to hint at its remarkable past. Yet appearances can be deceptive. Few places in Tavistock encapsulate so many centuries of the town's history in such a short distance. This year's Heritage Open Days introduces a fascinating new guided walk that uncovers the hidden stories of "

This year’s Heritage Open Days already offers a special opportunity to discover more about the Rediscovering Tavistock Abbey project with the guided walk on September 17th Rediscovering Tavistock Abbey: From Abbey to Guildhall but after negotiations with both Le Page architects and and the conservation team at DBR we can now confirm an exciting addition which makes this one of the most unusual events in the programme. Participants will have the opportunity to go onto the sca

\ When people think of Tavistock's history, they often picture the Abbey ruins, the Dukes of Bedford, the canal or the great mining era. Yet the story of Tavistock begins much earlier. This year's Heritage Open Days opens with two remarkable talks that transport audiences back more than a thousand years to the Anglo-Saxon world, revealing how a powerful Devon family helped shape not only Tavistock, but England itself. These opening lectures by historian John Fletcher and Dr G

Education has always been central to Tavistock’s story, shaping not only young minds but also the fabric of the town itself. This...