Hampshire businesses feature in heritage films

Thanks to sponsorship from Winchester BID three short films exploring the history behind some of Hampshire’s businesses have been created specially for this year’s Winchester Heritage Open Days.

Sonder Films in Winchester

‘Behind the Business’ has been produced by Sonder Films, an independent film production company established in 2017 by Winchester friends, Joel Barney, Oscar Ferguson and Ozzi Sanderson. Based in both Winchester and London their work specialises in branded content, music videos and documentaries. 

Their heritage video features The Hampshire Chronicle, one of the oldest local newspapers in England, Carter Marsh & Co, Fine Clocks & Watches, and The Winchester Book Shop which holds three floors of second-hand, vintage, antiquarian and nearly new books.

Joel said:

“Storytelling is always at the centre of what we do, and our focus is to create work that is bold, engaging and unique. It has been a great privilege to go behind the scenes of these three very different businesses and to share some of their incredible history.”

Hampshire’s Chalkstreams

The idea behind the two other films has come from Kyle Alexander, the creator of The Winchester Guidebook.

Working with local cameraman, Finn Ducker, Kyle chose this year’s festival theme of Hidden Nature to uncover the fascinating relationship between Winchester and its chalk geology.

The films focus on two of the region’s finest food and drink suppliers, ChalkStream Foods on the River Test and wine producers, Exton Park.

Commenting on how this year has presented its problems, Kyle added

“but what a great opportunity we’ve had to get out into nature and create something truly unique. These two exceptional businesses are not normally open to the public, so Heritage Open Days viewers are in for something special this year I think.”

Heritage trail supports indie shops

For this year’s Heritage Open Days, residents and visitors are in for a visual treat. From 11th to 20th September a group of Winchester’s independent shopkeepers will be participating in the Support IndieWinch Trail using their shop windows as exhibition space to interpret ‘Hidden Nature’, the theme for this year’s festival.

Alice Duffield, from Eclectic Hound, who came up with the idea said

"we are excited to put together a trail to celebrate that the independent shops of Winchester are open for business following lockdown. The trail is our way of thanking customers for supporting us through these challenging times."

Independent shops are an important part of Winchester’s heritage and their unique nature adds to the city’s character and individuality. Shopkeepers will use the opportunity to express their knowledge and passion for the products they sell. Visitors can also expect to see some exciting collaborations with local artists.

With most festival events taking place online this year, the trail will be welcomed by those wishing to get out and explore some of the city’s history, its varied shopping areas and interesting side streets.

A printed Support IndieWinch trail map will be available from Eclectic Hound and the other participating shops and an electronic version via a link on the @winchesterindependents Instagram page. Those following the trail are encouraged to share pictures using #supportindiewinch and vote for the best window. 

Local Poet Remembered in Heritage Open Days reading

One of the online Heritage Open Days events which will take place in September will be dedicated to the memory of Sue Wrinch, local poet and organiser of the Winchester Loose Muse group, who died suddenly in July. A Hidden Nature reading will take place online and will feature 10 local poets. 

Members of Loose Muse Winchester were shocked and saddened by the news of Sue Wrinch’s early death in July. Sue set up this monthly gathering in 2015 and booked a dazzling array of women poets and fiction writers to inspire members and provide a safe space for local women writers to share their work in open mic sessions. Her enthusiasm and commitment provided a wealth of opportunities for developing writers.

Poets at this year’s online reading will be inspired by the theme of ‘Hidden Nature’ and each poet will read a poem of their own as well as one of their choice from Sue’s published collections Down by Wild Water (2015) and Stained Lips (2020). The event will be a tribute to Sue’s leadership and generosity by fellow poets who will always remember her with gratitude and affection.

Nicky Gottlieb of Heritage Open Days said: “Sue previously organised a number of events for Winchester Heritage Open Days using the HODs themes including ‘Extraordinary Women’ and ‘People Power’. She inspired poets to produce wonderful new work and put together several vibrant performances for us at venues around the city.” 

Jenny McRobert who is organising the event said: “We are honoured that a number of well known poets and writers will be joining us to read including Liz Berry, Rebecca Goss, Susmita Bhattacharya, and Claire Fuller. Also featured are local laureates Kathryn Bevis and Isabel Rogers.”

The Hidden Nature reading will be live streamed on Sunday 20 September at 2:00pm. Places must be booked.

We're going digital for 2020!

The organisers of the Winchester Heritage Open Days festival are delighted to announce that this year's 2020 festival will be going ahead, with free events and local stories at its heart. 

Since 2016, Winchester’s Heritage Open Days festival has grown to become an important event in the local calendar, with thousands of visitors attending the programme of events.

This year, with the uncertainty surrounding when cultural events will be able to run once more following the Covid-19 Pandemic, it has become clear that the traditional format of the festival will not be possible in September. The focus this year will be digital.

Commenting on the decision to focus on digital events this year, Festival Director Nicky Gottlieb said, 

“We are enormously grateful to all our sponsors, supporters, volunteers and event organisers who have helped the Festival grow to become the success that it is. I am sure that there will be people who look forward to the events every year and will be disappointed by our decision not to hold events in the usual way this year. 

However, it is important the festival is safe, is inclusive and does not add further cost or burden to businesses and organisations who at this time are getting back on their feet.  Whilst we hope one or two organisations may be able to hold some in-person events (in line with government guidance at the time of the festival), our focus will be on encouraging digital events. We do this with the expectation that this year’s festival will be smaller. 

We are working hard to plan for a digital festival this September, and this will include our very own podcast channel. We very much hope to welcome all our events and visitors back in the usual way in September 2021.”

Further details on the programme for the 2020 Digital Heritage Open Days Festival and the launch of our podcast channel in August will be released in due course.

2019 Facts and Figures

Winchester Heritage Open Days is one of the biggest Heritage Open Days hubs in the country, accounting for over 2% of the national programme.

In 2019 there were 145 events over ten days in more than 70 venues in and around Winchester, with over 22,000 festival visits.

This year more than half of the bookable events were fully booked by the opening day of the festival which is extraordinary. Generally for FREE events 45% of tickets are not taken up until the day of the event.

Nearly 60,000 visits to our website between the box office opening in mid July and the last day of the festival, with more than 3,000 visitors to website on our first festival Saturday. A reach of 55,000 on social media during the festival and in the preceding 20days. There are now just under 1000 people on our mailing list with a pre-festival engagement rate of 75% and an average engagement rate of 54%.

62% of attendees specifically came into Winchester because of the festival and 60% came into Winchester on multiple days for multiple events. We had a few festival super fans this year; at least three attended twenty or more and a further twenty attended ten or more events over the ten days.

Nearly three quarters of our visitors live within 15 miles of Winchester, and around 17% travelled more than 25miles to attend for one or more of the days. An increase of 2% on the previous year

We are also seeing overseas visitors discovering Winchester Heritage Open Days on the internet, and specifically coming to Winchester because of it. One from Australia wrote to us afterwards saying

“totally worth travelling to the UK all the way from Australia (28hrs!), to find myself smack in the middle of Heritage Open Days. So much fantastic insight into history - and for a traveller on a tight budget it was wonderful to have access to much of this at no cost! Nicky and Becky were amazing at supporting my interest to attend as many events as possible and assisting me to get into tours, even though I was coming in at the 11th hour. Thanks so much for holding these incredible events - and for making an International traveller feel so welcome! An unforgettable experience!!’

Events this year included open buildings, guided tours and walks, lectures and seminars, live theatre and music, living history events, heritage craft workshop, tastings, linking up with other festivals, exhibitions and behind the scenes visits.

The tours at Winchester College are probably the most popular but there was also a huge interest in the talks, Open Greener Houses, Abbots Barton Farmhouse, events at Great Hall, behind the scenes tours across the city .

We know from previous years 89% of visitors learn something new thanks to their HODs experience. HODs also engages the local community with 88% feeling more proud of their local area and 85% feeling inspired to visit another heritage event or site in the near future.

Here are some of the comments we received in 2019 when we ask what they liked most about HODs;

• Having free access to Winchester's Historic Buildings, and seeing parts of Winchester not usually open to public

• The variety of events on offer - The casualness of attending, i.e. if there was space you we welcome to join - The quality of the people doing the tours

• Enthusiasm of the tour guides, learning about history & talks in places not usually open

• A chance to step back & appreciate the richness of local history

It is not just the visitors who gain, some businesses who hosted events have shared that they experienced a significant increase in sales as a direct result of HODs and many attractions reported their visitor numbers were up throughout the festival period and not just on the days they were running events. The 2019 festival was incredibly successful.