Great Linford Manor Park Heritage Open Day 2026 report

History walk ready to depart.

The Friends of Great Linford Manor Park enjoyed a great Heritage Open Days event spread over two days, Friday, September 11th, and Saturday 12th. The weather, though occasionally gusty enough to see the team scrambling after scattered paperwork, kept generally bright and pleasant.

Pre-HOD preparation

On the Wednesday before the HOD, the practical volunteering team set about cleaning the front of the almshouses and schoolhouse of dirt, dust and cobwebs, as well as putting up the HOD bunting and signage around the park.

Practical volunteering team work to clean the Almshouses and Schoolhouse.

Friday BSL walk

The Friday walk, billed as a British Sign Language-assisted walk, was a little disappointing, with only six people attending, none of whom required signing assistance. Given that there were 40 attendees at the last BSL walk. and it received rave reviews, a better turnout was anticipated. However, the attendees were very happy with the walk

Setup on Saturday

On Saturday morning, team members were in the park bright and early to meet with Parks Trust rangers, who kindly delivered the loan of a marquee, tables, and chairs. With their help, the marquee was soon set up and the team ready to greet visitors.

The Friends ready to greet visitors.

Talks and cake

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St. Andrew’s Church once again kindly hosted our talks in the afternoon, both of which were well attended. I delivered two talks, one on the history of the Almshouses, and the other on a wider history of the village.

There was a steady stream of customers buying drinks and delicious cake from the Church team, who, as always, put on a wonderful spread.

Audience watches talk on the history of the Almshouses.

Meet the lacemaker

The Friends were also delighted to once again welcome Wendy Carey, who provided her in-depth knowledge of Lace making in the village.

Wendy Carey in the attire of a Lace maker.

Children's activities

Though there wasn't an enormous take-up, the Friends did offer a colouring activity in the park, with four fantastic designs created by volunteer Steve. These were designed to complement the suggested theme for this year's HOD: ordinary people. Hence, there were colouring sheets for a butcher, baker, lacemaker and photographer. These were accompanied by brief bios of real people who once lived and worked in the village.

Above, some completed colouring.

Continuing our outreach with a new leaflet

As part of the Friends' continuing outreach to the community, they distributed a new leaflet, which celebrates the recent excellent news about the Almshouses, but also raised concerns felt about the future of the Courtyard Buildings.

Leaflet produced for the HOD.

Conclusion and plaudits

In conclusion, the heritage Open Days were very well received, as illustrated by the following comments made on Facebook.

“My friends and I joined the 11am History Walk today, enjoyed Tea and Cakes in the church and listened to the talk about Great Linford Alms Houses at 1pm. I have to say we had a wonderful time and found the walk and talk to be very interesting and informative. Well done to everyone involved.”

“We also joined and found it very interesting and well organised. Well done and thank you.”

“A lovely walk learning about the history of Great Linford. Thank you.”