Historic buildings to visit in the British Isles
Click the logos for details of hundreds of historic buildings in the UK and Ireland open to the public. European Heritage Days in September each year provide a chance to see historic buildings free, including some not usually open to the public. Historic buildings and open air museums may be closed during the winter.
Building museums
Amberley Working Museum, Houghton Bridge, Amberley, Arundel, West Sussex BN18 9LT
This 36-acre open-air museum is dedicated to the industrial heritage of the south-east. It includes the Paviors' Museum of Roads and Roadmaking and the only collection in the country relating to concrete. Historic buildings relocated to the site include a brickyard drying shed, kilns, engine house, and a gin mill - a twelve-sided building which once housed a horse-powered gin.
Auchindrain Museum, by Inveraray, Argyll, Scotland PA32 8XN
Auchindrain is the only communal-tenancy West Highland farming township to have survived in much of its original form. The buildings have been restored and furnished in period styles to convey the life of the Highlands in past centuries.
Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings, Bromsgrove, Hereford and Worcester
Beginning with the 16th-century Merchant's House, 25 historic buildings have been dismantled and re-erected on the site, including a 16th-century cruck barn, 17th-century cock pit, Victorian mission church, toll-keeper's house and windmill, and a 1946 prefab. The collection is notable for its range of building materials timber, brick, corrugated iron, steel, asbestos, concrete and fibreglass.
Beamish Open Air Museum, Beamish, County Durham, DH9 0RG
Beamish has rescued and re-built historic buildings from the north of England on a 300-acre site that already contained Pockerley Manor House, Home Farm and the Drift Mine. All the buildings are displayed as they would have been either c.1825 or c.1913. A highlight is the recreation of a typical market town street of the early 1900s, complete with trams.
The Black Country Living Museum, Tipton Road, Dudley, West Midlands, DY1 4SQ
Historic buildings from all around the Black Country have been moved and rebuilt on a 26-acre site in the shadow of Dudley Castle. The focus is on urban and industrial life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The range of buildings is extraordinary, including an inn, baths and a fairground as well as a variety of industrial buildings and a replica of the Newcomen Steam Engine. Visitors can explore the site by canal boat and tram.
The Building of Bath Museum The Huntingdon Chapel, The Vineyards, Bath BA1 5NA
Reveals the story behind the development of the Georgian city. Displays explain how the buildings of this world heritage site were designed, built, decorated, and lived in during the 18th century. Exhibits include full-size reconstructions, artefacts, tools and a series of models. A study area and reference library is available to anyone interested in conducting research on architectural history and conservation by prior appointment.
Burwell Museum of Fen-Edge Village Life, Burwell, Cambridgeshire
A restored windmill has been used as a focus for a collection of reconstructed buildings from elsewhere in the area. Displays include a building site with local building materials and old plumbing and carpentry tools.
The Chiltern Open Air Museum, Chalfont St Giles, Bucks. HP8 4AD
This museum rescues and re-erects historic buildings from medieval to modern. It now boasts over 30 buildings including a 16th/17th-century cottage, 19th-century agricultural buildings, forge and tollhouse, and 19th and 20th-century prefabricated buildings.
The Hamptonne Country Life Museum, Rue de la Patente, St Lawrence, Jersey, Channel Isles JE3 1HS
This collection of restored farm houses and outbuildings dates from the 15th century to the 19th. It includes an upper hall house, similar to those in medieval Brittany, with living rooms over housing for livestock.
Ironbridge Gorge Museums, Coalbrookdale, Telford, Shropshire
The conglomeration of museums runs along the valley beside River Severn, spanned by the world's first iron bridge, built in 1779. They include the recreated Blists Hill Victorian Town and the Jackfield Tile Museum.
The Kerry Bog Village, Ballincleave, Glenbeigh, Co. Kerry, Republic of Ireland
This thatched village is mainly a recreation of early 1800s Irish life, with replica cottages, but it includes a blacksmith's forge relocated from Brosna, North Kerry.
Morwellham Quay, Near Tavistock, Devon PL19 8JL
This open-air museum set in 200 acres of the Tamar Valley has more than a restored Victorian dock and quay, complete with slate-fronted former harbour masterā€™s house and the Ship Inn. There is also a restored 19th-century village and farm.
The Museum of East Anglian Life, Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14 1DL
St Osyth's Abbey, Essex, owned the manor of Stowmarket and built the 13th-century barn which forms the centrepiece of this open air museum. Abbot's Hall, the Queen Anne manor house, with its walled gardens, is also owned by the museum. Other vernacular buildings have been rescued and moved to the 75-acre site, including a mid-14th-century timber-framed farmhouse, an 18th-century watermill and blacksmith's forge, and a late 19th-century nonconformist chapel of the 'tin tabernacle' type.
National Folk Museum, Cregneash, Isle of Man
This preserved village provides a working illustration of life in a 19th-century Manx upland crofting community. It includes a thatched farmstead and crofter's cottage.
National History Museum of Wales, St Fagans, Cardiff, South Gamorgan, Wales CF5 6XB
In the grounds of St Fagans Castle, a late 16th-century manor house, are over 40 buildings moved from various parts of Wales and re-erected, including the medieval church of St Teilo, a school, a chapel, a Workmen's Institute and several workshops. The library has a large collection of photographs, including those of buildings in Wales.
Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole North Yorkshire YO6 6UA
A varied collection of rural buildings on a three-acre site include the 16th-century thatched Harome Manor House - one of the largest examples of cruck construction in Northern England. The buildings range widely in date and now include a reconstructed Iron-Age roundhouse.
The Somerset Brick and Tile Museum East Quay, Bridgwater, Somerset
The last surviving kiln at the former Barham Brother's yard. Demonstrated inside are the methods of making the bricks, tiles, and terracotta plaques familiar in Somerset towns.
Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, 153 Bangor Road, Cultra, Holywood, Co. Down, Northern Ireland BT18 0EU
More than 40 buildings have been removed from their original sites in different parts of Ulster and re-erected in the open-air museum in Cultra. The collection includes farmhouses, mills and other rural buildings, together with a group of urban buildings forming Ballycultra Town. The most unusual building is also the smallest: Tullylish Bleach Green Watch Tower.
The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Singleton, Chichester, West Sussex, PO18 0EU
Over 40 historic buildings from south east England which have been rescued from destruction, dismantled and reconstructed on the site, including a timber-framed farmhouse from Kent, a market hall from Hampshire, a Victorian school, a medieval shop, carpenter's, plumber's and brickmaker's workshops, barns, a granary and a tread wheel from the South Downs.
The Welsh Slate Museum, Llanberis, Gwynedd, Wales
In Victorian workshops beside a former quarry, visitors can see techniques of roofing slate preparation. The site also has a waterwheel, forges, foundry and locomotive shed. Four quarrymen's houses, rescued from demolition in Blaenau Ffestiniog, have been re-erected here.