Colchester Castle is free on Saturday 12 September only, normally £13.95, and 42 other sites open free. Day-by-day list for 11 to 20 September.

Colchester Castle charges £13.95 for an adult ticket. On Saturday 12 September it charges nothing, and that is the only free day it has all year.

It is the biggest single offer in this year’s Colchester Heritage Open Days, which opens on Friday 11 September and runs to Sunday 20 September. Colchester City Council said on 10 September that 55 events will run across 43 locations. That is the largest programme since the museum service first joined the national festival in 1999.

Every event is free. Four of them have to be booked, and the ballot for one has already closed.

Only four places open on the first day

Friday is a quiet start. The council’s programme leaflet lists just four sites open on 11 September:

  • St Botolph’s Church and Priory, Priory Street, 09.30 to 15.30
  • Colchester Baptist Church, Eld Lane, 13.00 to 16.00
  • Mercury Theatre backstage tours, Balkerne Gate, at 10.00, 10.30, 11.00 and 11.30
  • St Stephen’s Church at Great Wigborough, about six miles south of the city, 10.00 to 16.00

The Mercury tours last 45 minutes, take in the stage, workshop and wardrobe, and must be booked on 01206 573948. St Botolph’s is the only site in the programme open on all ten days of the festival.

Saturday 12 September is the day to use

The middle Saturday carries most of the weight, and it is the one day the paid attractions drop their charges.

Colchester Castle opens 10.00 to 17.00 with last entry at 16.30. Colchester and Ipswich Museums prices its adult ticket at £13.95, with children aged 4 to 16 at £8.50 and a family saver at £36.50, all set on 1 April 2026. Its Heritage Open Days listing states plainly that 12 September is the only free day at the Castle.

Also open that Saturday, all without booking:

  • Roman Circus Centre, Roman Circus Walk, 10.00 to 15.30, on the site of the only known Roman chariot-racing track in Britain
  • Gray’s Summerhouse in Castle Park, 10.00 to 16.00, with the Gardener’s Hut open for the first time
  • Quaker Meeting House, Church Street, 10.00 to 16.00
  • SPACE Colchester, the former police station at 37 Queen Street, 10.00 to 17.00
  • St John’s Green Primary School, an 1898 building by Goodey and Cressall, 10.00 to 14.00
  • St Leonard at the Hythe, Hythe Hill, 10.00 to 16.00
  • St John’s Orthodox Church, Military Road, one tour at 16.00

Two guided walks leave from the war memorial at the Castle Park entrance that day. The Town to Sea Trail starts at 11.00 and the Walking the Walls tour at 14.00. Both last two hours.

Four things are new this year

The leaflet marks four events as new for 2026.

  • Garrison Walk, Saturday 12 September at 11.00, from the Airborne Soldier statue on the Flagstaff Road open space. It covers the Victorian cavalry and artillery barracks and lasts an hour and a half.
  • New Town Walk, Friday 18 September at 14.00, from Wimpole Road Methodist Church, on the planned late-Victorian development east of the centre.
  • Old Library and Town Hall Law Courts, Saturday 19 September, tours at 13.00 and 14.30. The route takes in Colchester’s first public library, opened in 1894, then the former courts and prison cells. The council warns it is not fully accessible.
  • Bell ringing at St John the Baptist, Layer de la Haye, Sunday 20 September, 14.00 to 16.00, with a chance to try it. The village is about four miles south west of the city.

Key dates for Colchester Heritage Open Days 2026: the festival opens on Friday 11 September with only four sites; Colchester Castle is free on Saturday 12 September, normally £13.95; only three openings midweek; Hollytrees is ballot-only on Saturday 19 September with the ballot closed on 29 August; the last day is Sunday 20 September

Hollytrees is free, but you cannot get in now

Hollytrees Museum on the High Street opens free from 10.00 to 16.00 on Saturday 19 September. Turning up will not work. The festival listing records that tickets were allocated by ballot, with slots at 10.00, 11.30, 14.00 and 15.30, a maximum of four per applicant, and a ballot that closed on 29 August. Successful entrants were told in the week beginning 31 August.

Hollytrees is worth the note because it stopped being free this year. Its normal adult ticket is now £5, with children at £3.50, again from 1 April 2026.

What else has to be booked

Three other events need arranging in advance:

  • Greyfriars, High Street, Sundays 13 and 20 September. The exhibition runs 10.30 to 16.00 and tours go at 11.00 and 14.00. Book on 01206 575913 or at events@greyfriarscolchester.co.uk.
  • Commonwealth War Graves Commission tour, Colchester Cemetery, Saturday 19 September at 11.00, booked through Eventbrite. The commission warns that tours can be called off at short notice, including on the morning.
  • Peake’s House, East Stockwell Street, Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 September, 10.00 to 16.00. Booking is preferred through the Landmark Trust.

The council also runs its own cemetery tours on Sunday 20 September at 10.00 and 14.00, meeting at the entrance gates on Mersea Road. Those need no booking.

Midweek is nearly empty

If you cannot make either weekend, the programme thins out sharply. Beyond St Botolph’s, three things open between the Monday and the Friday:

  • Monday 14 September: St Mary’s at the Walls, now Colchester Arts Centre, open 12.30 to 15.30 with tours at 13.00, 14.00 and 15.00
  • Tuesday 15 September: The Munnings Art Museum at Dedham, about six miles north east, 11.00 to 16.30
  • Friday 18 September: the New Town Walk at 14.00

Nothing at all is listed for Wednesday 16 or Thursday 17 September.

Out of town, and worth the drive

Several of the more unusual openings are outside Colchester itself, though all are still in the city council’s district.

  • Mersea Barrow, Barrow Barn, 7A East Mersea Road, West Mersea, about eight miles south. Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September, 10.00 to 16.00. You can walk inside a Roman burial mound dated AD 100 to 120 and excavated in 1912, in groups of no more than ten.
  • Boxted Airfield Museum, Langham Lane, Langham, about four miles north. Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 September, 10.00 to 16.00. It holds the only B26 Marauder fuselage section in the UK.
  • Cannock Mill, Old Heath Road, Sunday 20 September, 13.30 to 16.00. A corn and fulling mill until the early 1960s, now a cohousing scheme. There is no parking on site; the mill points visitors to the S1 and S9 buses.
  • Wivenhoe, about three and a half miles south east, runs its own four days across both weekends: St Mary’s Church, The Nottage maritime institute on the Quay, the Chapel Museum and the Wivenhoe Memories photographic exhibition at William Loveless Hall.

Two more nearby events appear on the national Heritage Open Days website but not on the Colchester leaflet, and neither is in this district. Earls Colne Heritage Museum opens at the Quaker Meeting House on Saturday 12 September, in Braintree district about nine miles west. The Gresley Madan Collection at Giffords Hall, Stoke-by-Nayland, opens on 18 and 19 September by prior email, and that is in Suffolk, about eight miles north.

Two dates worth checking before you travel

The council leaflet and the national festival website do not agree everywhere.

Wivenhoe Chapel Museum is listed at 10.00 to 13.00 in the printed leaflet and 10.00 to 16.00 on all four days in its festival listing. Mersea Barrow is given as CO5 8EX in the leaflet and CO5 8SL online. Both are real West Mersea postcodes and they are about a mile apart, so use the street address rather than the postcode.

One date is stated clearly in both places and is easy to get wrong: St Mary’s Church in Wivenhoe is open on 12, 13 and 20 September but not on 19 September.

The council’s own leaflet carries a disclaimer asking visitors to check for updates before travelling. Changes are posted on Visit Colchester.

What it means for you

If you only do one thing, do Saturday 12 September in the city centre. The Castle, the Roman Circus Centre, Gray’s Summerhouse, the Quaker Meeting House and two guided walks are all within walking distance of each other, and the Castle alone is £13.95 you would otherwise pay.

If you want the rarer stuff, take the second weekend instead. Mersea Barrow, the Town Hall, the old law courts and prison cells, and the bell tower at Layer de la Haye are all 19 or 20 September.

Book now if you want Greyfriars, the war graves tour or a Mercury backstage tour. Do not set out for Hollytrees without a ballot ticket.

Most city centre venues have no parking of their own. Charges and locations are on our parking in Colchester page, and the council’s leaflet points drivers to the MiPermit app. Check our roadworks and travel page before driving in, and things to do in Colchester for what is open the rest of the year.

There is also a free self-guided audio walk, Unsung Hands, which starts at Balkerne Gate and can be done at any time during the festival. It is run by AudaTours through a phone app and stays outside the buildings.

Sources