On Saturday, we opened up our doors for Heritage Open Days 2026, offering free admission to the Museum, along with lots of exciting events and activities to celebrate this year’s theme: Everyday Histories.

Throughout the Museum, you can always find plenty of stories about individual Riflemen – their courage, their service, and their life outside the regiment.

To celebrate the Everyday Histories theme, we had a re-enactor on site to talk about daily life in the 95th Rifles, which served during the Napoleonic Wars, pioneering a new kind of warfare based around the use of the Baker Rifle, which was much more accurate than the musket used by most regiments.

Our new trail invited young visitors to spot everyday objects throughout the Museum, from cutlery to snacks. If you want to bring a copy with you to give it a go next time you visit the Museum, you can download a copy of the trail here!

In the Kincaid Gallery, our temporary exhibition Courage Takes Flight: The Green Jackets Parachute Club let visitors read about some of the more daring hobbies available to soldiers serving in the regiment, alongside photographs, footage, and artefacts. The exhibition remains up until the end of September, so there’s still time to drop by if you haven’t visited yet!

There was also the chance to try out wargaming, with a World War I scenario run by our museum assistant Michael.

Left: young visitors try their hand at wargaming

Middle: wargaming pieces

Right: Courage Takes Flight display

Thank you to everyone who visited and made Heritage Open Days 2026 an exciting event! We look forward to opening the Museum up again for Heritage Open Days in 2027.