Open the Doors: Wales Is Giving Us the Keys to Its Past

There is something rather wonderful happening across Wales today.

Doors that are usually closed are opening. Places we drive past without knowing quite what lies behind the walls are welcoming people inside. Chapels, castles, churches, historic houses, industrial sites and buildings that have quietly watched generations of Welsh life pass by are becoming accessible again.

Throughout September, Open Doors — Drysau Agored is giving people opportunities to explore more than 200 historic sites, landmarks and hidden places across Wales, with free entry, special events or guided tours. It is Wales’s contribution to the wider European Heritage Days initiative, and this weekend sees an extraordinary collection of places taking part.

That feels worth celebrating.

We can sometimes make the mistake of thinking heritage belongs principally to historians. It doesn’t. Heritage is simply the accumulated story of people who happened to be here before us.

The buildings remain, but the interesting bit has always been the people.

Today you could explore places ranging from North East Wales Archives at Ruthin Gaol and Llanthony Priory to churches, chapels, historic houses and gardens. Around Welshpool, several organisations have even joined forces for the weekend: Powis Castle and Garden, Welshpool Town Council, the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway and Y Lanfa Museum are participating together.

Some of the numbers behind Welsh heritage are extraordinary. Cadw says Wales has more than 30,000 listed buildings, over 4,200 protected historic monuments, nearly 400 registered historic parks and gardens and four World Heritage Sites. Cadw itself cares for more than 130 monuments.

Yet statistics don’t really explain why these places matter.

Stand beside an ancient wall and eventually somebody will tell you which king built it, which army attacked it and approximately when somebody knocked a large hole through it.

I’m usually more interested in something else.

Who cooked here?

Who complained about the weather?

Who fell in love here?

Who had an argument, told a joke, worried about money, raised children or simply stood outside one evening looking at exactly the same Welsh hills we can see today?

History becomes much more interesting when we remember that the people inside it were just people.

Perhaps that is also where naturism has something useful to contribute.

Naturism has a habit of stripping away — quite literally sometimes — many of the signals we use to categorise one another. Clothing can communicate wealth, occupation, status, fashion, religion, tribe and social expectation. Without some of those signals, what remains becomes remarkably ordinary: another human being.

Heritage can perform a similar trick with time.

The further we look into the past, the easier it is to imagine people as characters in costume. But underneath the armour, robes, work clothes and Sunday best were bodies remarkably like ours. People got cold. They aged. They became ill. They laughed. They fancied people they probably shouldn’t have fancied. They worried about their appearance and occasionally made spectacularly questionable decisions.

Humanity hasn’t changed quite as much as our wardrobes have.

And there is evidence that we genuinely enjoy reconnecting with these places. In Cadw’s 2025 visitor survey, 85% strongly agreed that their overall experience was good, while 39% said the experience was actually better than they had expected. Interestingly, only 23% of summer visitors surveyed came from Wales itself.

Perhaps Open Doors gives those of us who live here a particularly good excuse to become tourists in our own country.

Naturism Wales has always believed that living naturally is about considerably more than simply removing clothes. It is about curiosity, connection, community and experiencing the world rather than merely observing it.

So this weekend, open a door.

Walk somewhere you have driven past for twenty years. Read the plaque. Ask the volunteer the question nobody else has asked. Wander around an old railway, castle, chapel, garden or industrial building and imagine the ordinary Welsh lives that once filled it.

Our heritage isn’t something sitting behind us.

It is the long story that eventually arrived at us.

And one day, rather unsettlingly, we will be somebody else’s history too.

If you could open the doors to one normally inaccessible historic place anywhere in Wales and explore it for the day, where would you choose?

Further reading

Cadw — Open Doors 2026⁠ — the official introduction to this September’s programme and its 200-plus participating Welsh heritage sites.

Cadw — search Open Doors events across Wales⁠ — useful for finding somewhere participating today or later this month.

Welsh Government — Cadw Peak Season Visitor Survey 2025⁠ — the latest published research into who visits Welsh historic monuments and what visitors think of the experience.

Cadw — Wales heritage trails⁠ — ideas for exploring Welsh history on foot, by bicycle and through themed routes.