As the weather begins to get slightly better and stay a little dryer (0k, so maybe I’m being very optimistic), it’s time for us to start looking again at what we can do in the great outdoors, countryside and parks. Wrest Park in Silsoe, Bedforshire is one of the UK’s least known parks and yet is magnificent and information for disabled people.

English Heritage provide information for people with mobility, hearing and visual impairments on their website which includes:

Facilities Details:

Toilets: Disabled toilet inside the mansion. Please see access details below.
Shop: Within mansion.
Limited refreshments (tea, coffee, biscuits, cold drinks, confectionary and ice creams) available from the shop. Currently no tearoom/café onsite.

Access:

Access to house: There are steps at the entrance, but an alternative level entrance is available to the garden. Unaccompanied wheelchair users should phone in advance to arrange for access. Buggies are available for disabled visitors.
Grounds and garden buildings: Access to the grounds is via mainly gravel paths and smooth grass. There are steps or a steep slope to the Orangery and steep steps to the Pavilion. There is a ramp to access the Bowling Green House. Benches are provided.

Parking:

Disabled visitors may park outside the mansion.

Visually Impaired Visitors:

Many garden ornaments and sculptures may be touched. There are also many trees and wild flowers.

Hearing Impaired Visitors:

Transcript of audio tour available. (Source: Wrest Park, English Heritage)

Further details can be found on OpenBritain, on page 204 of the OpenBritain 2010 Guide and on the English Heritage Website.

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Sandringham House is near the accessible accommodation Park House Hotel and is one of the Royal Family’s country retreats. “The Estate is a thriving mixed landscape, including the tidal mudflats of the Wash, woodland and wetland, arable, livestock and fruit farms, and commercial and residential properties; it is managed to a high standard and sustainably with the aims always of being financially self-sufficient and of providing a place of enjoyment not only for The Royal Family but also for the many thousands of visitors who come to see the House, Museum and Gardens or just to enjoy the Country Park.” (source: www.sandringhamestate.co.uk)

Sandringham House is also fully accessible for wheelchair users and their web site has an Accessibility Page which gives a full Access Statement and there is also an Area Plan of the estate.

Sandringham House is closed until Easter 2010.  The Visitor Centre (Gift Shop, Restaurant and Plant Centre) is open every day all through the year.  Sandringham Church is closed until Easter 2010.

2010 opening dates:  from Saturday 3rd April daily until and including Friday 23rd July, then from Sunday 1st August daily until Sunday 31st October. For further details please see the Sandringham House Website.

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Mystery surrounds this 5,000 year old monument in the centre of the World Heritage Site. Visit this prehistoric South West site near Salisbury in Wiltshire, and decide for yourself whether Stonehenge was a place of sun worship, a healing sanctuary, a sacred burial site, or something different altogether!

English Heritage also provide information and services for disabled people such as:

Access: On tarmac and grass path around outer circle (subject to weather conditions). One wheelchair available to visitors on request at entrance kiosk.

Parking: Reserved parking for disabled drivers is available close to entrance. Ticket office reached by short, sloping tarmac path.

Visually Impaired Visitors: Braille and large print guides are available on request. Touching Stones accessible at the main entrance.

Hearing Impaired Visitors: Audio tour with hearing loop in ten languages (subject to availability).

Further information regarding facilities at Stonehenge can be found on OpenBritain, on page 126 of the OpenBritain 2010 Guide and on the English Heritage website.

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According to English Heritage Audley End House in Essex is one of England’s finest country houses, and a mansion with a difference:

“Following the restoration of its great Service Wing, visitors can now tour the ‘parallel world’ where armies of servants laboured to ensure the smooth running of this great mansion.

Audley End takes its name from Sir Thomas Audley, Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor who, after 1538, adapted the extensive buildings of suppressed Walden Abbey as his mansion. His grandson Thomas Howard, first Earl of Suffolk, rebuilt the house on a massive scale between 1603 and 1614. Known as ‘the Palace of Audley End’, this Jacobean ‘prodigy house’ was three times its present size, and one of the largest mansions in England. But in 1618 Suffolk fell from favour and into massive debt, and his great house went into decline. More

Disabled people can find access and other useful information on Visitor Information page of Audley End House and Gardens where it states:

Facilities Available:

Facilities Details:

Wheelchairs: we have four wheelchairs, available on request; four motorised wheelchairs available in grounds, but must be booked in advance. Please ring 01799 522842.

Toilets: Adapted; level access.

Shop: Level access.

Tea rooms: Ramped access to the tea rooms. Please note there are 3 steps to the self-service cafe.

Access:

Access to house: Via loose gravel, tarmac, cobbles and smooth grass. Ground floor level apart from Butlers Pantry which has 4 steps.

Gardens: Access via tarmac and gravel paths and very smooth grass. Seats provided. A number of bridges either have a step or steep slope.

Parking:

200m from entrance, with reserved parking for disabled visitors. Please make arrangements in advance if possible.

Visually Impaired Visitors:

Fountain, wildfowl and bird song in grounds; flower and rose gardens

Please see the English Heritage site for further details.

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The Colchester Castle Museum has won awards for improvements made in regard to physical access. It has level or ramped access to the ground floor, a lift to the first floor and an accessibile toilet on the ground floor. Induction loops are fitted in appropriate locations through out the museum. However tours of the Castle itself do include two sets of steep stairs and so are not accessible for people with mobility problems. Disabled people and their helpers are eligible for concessionary rate admissions. For further information regarding facilities for disbaled people please visit their access page.

The Sixties Seen: Art, Music and Fashion (until 1st November)

Currently there is a sixties exhibition at the Castle Museum where you can “Enjoy beautiful examples of fashion from the new boutiques and young designers of the time with pieces by Biba, Mary Quant and John Stephens. With gorgeous dresses, denim suits, coats, kaftans and more you will love this nostalgic look at some of the most memorable fashion of the time.

Discover the art of the time with fabulous pieces of Op-Art, among others, by Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely, who influenced textile design and enjoy pieces by Margaret Mellis, John Howlin and more. Not forgetting the music of the time such as The Who and Jimi Hendrix, there will be fan magazines, posters, album covers and much more.”

On Tuesday 13th October there is a guided tour of the exhibition which will also be British Sign Language Interpreted. The tour is free, after normal Castle admission and starts at 2pm and you do not need to book in advance.

Tea and Talks (Colchester Castle, every Saturday 31st October – 28th November)

The annual Tea and Talk series at the castle this autumn provides a great range of lectures for visitors, covering topics from long ago to the late 20th century. Booking can be made at the Hollytrees Museum, or phoning 01206 282940. All talks have the additional service of being British Sign language interpreted

Local historian Andrew Philips (31st October) kicks things off by showing how Colchester changed in the latter half of the 20th from an old market town to a bustling retail centre. From the 1950s, through the Swinging Sixties to the 1990s, this talk will be a great insight to some, and an enjoyable reminiscence for others.

Patrick Denney (7th November) then takes us back even further to the golden age of theatre and music hall to tell visitors about two of the great events in the early part of the 20th century. The 1909 Colchester Pageant was a hugely ambitious staging of Colchester’s history, while Buffalo Bill’s 1903 visit to Colchester included staggering logistics (his entourage arrived by train, set up a covered 10,000 seater arena, performed their show, took down the arena and left by train – all in one day!!! That’s an arena with the same capacity as the Weston Homes Community Stadium). Annie Oakley – one of the most skilled people with a gun ever to have lived, entertained the Colchester crowds as part of the show.

Following his hugely popular and entertaining talk last year on ‘History through Essex Pub Signs’, local historian Keith Lovell (14th November) is back by popular demand. This talk looks at the origins of the names of beers brewed in the eastern counties. Among those from Essex are Edward Bright Stout, Bitternoth, Braintree Silk, Redoubt, Lighthouse, and many more. (Please note that Old Speckled Hen has nothing to do with chickens or foxes, but with MG Motors!). Sorry, but there will be no samples to taste!

Caroline McDonald, Curator for Archaeology, (21st November) then talks about Gosbecks, a hugely important hub of pre-Roman and Roman Colchester. This often forgotten site holds the true story of the founding of Colchester, and will prove to be a very interesting and enlightening talk.

The series ends with Peter Berridge (28th November) talking about the prisons of Colchester Castle. These prisons saw hundreds of years of criminals (and innocents!), including martyrs and witches, until it was closed in the 1830s as one of the country’s least sanitary prisons.

The talks cost £3.50 each (£3 for Friends of the Museums), or a ticket for all 5 talks can be bought for the price of 4. Tickets can be booked at Hollytrees Museum, or by phoning 01206 282940. Each talk starts at 3pm.

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Doors Open Days is coordinated by the Scottish Civic Trust and is part of European Herritage Days along side the Scottish Archaeology Month which is organised by Archaeology Scotland. Doors Open days is the largest free annual architechtural annual event in Scotland and runs throughout September.

On the Doors Open Days website you can search for free access to hundreds of fascinating buildings throughout Scotland. Every weekend throughout the month many buildings that are normally closed to the public open up for a glimpse into their private interiors.

You can search either through the site’s interactive map, area or date. Within the interactive map page you can also search by area, date and theme.

Unfortunately, you currently cannot search by facilities for people with disabilities this year, but maybe it’s something that they will add for 2010. However, once you have found a building that you would like to visit they do include symbols to indicate accessible WCs and if there is access to the building.

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