Hull Civic Society is celebrating after recording the best Heritage Open Days programme in its 30 year history. Current indications suggest that over 10,000 individual visits were made to the properties and tours on offer during this year's events.

"We are still getting figures in from the different venues and tour leaders, but all the indicators are that well over 10,000 people took advantage of this year's programme and visited buildings, went on tours or attended our talks," commented Society Chairman John Netherwood. The figure represented an increase of last year's total of 9,000 visits, which he suggested had been as a result of a larger programme of events and better publicity.

"We again increased the range and number of tours, talks and openings going on over the four days and printed double the number of brochures compared to last year and managed to distribute them more widely," he said.

Even the Society was surprised at how widespread the attraction of the city's Open Days had become, with visitors coming from all parts of the country and some comments in the venues visitors books showing some people from further afield including Australia and Canada.

"As our event is part of the national programme, people from across Britain often choose a city's Open Days programme to visit for a few days and because our programme in Hull is now one of the strongest in the north of England, we attract people who end up staying in the city for a long weekend."

As well as 30 historic buildings throwing open their doors, this year's Open Days featured a popular two day talk programme at Hull History Centre, activities at Hull University, a Fun Day in Trinity Square during the Freedom Festival and an oversubscribed Commercial Visits programme during which local companies gave guided tours of their premises.

Ann Burt attended a number of these company visits and commented:

"When I first read the booklet for this year’s open days, I was not too impressed with the list of commercial offerings, but I found all those I attended extremely interesting, particularly Ideal Heating and G F Smith, where the enthusiasm of the guides for their work and the company they work for really shone through. I really look forward to the Heritage Open Days; they somehow make the end of summer more bearable!"

Mr Netherwood was keen to emphasise that the Open Days were more than just a chance to open old buildings.

"We think our Open Day programme is an ideal complement to the Freedom Festival, giving people who visit the city as well as locals a real feel for the city's historical, cultural and commercial dimensions," he said.