Nine buildings in Reigate and Banstead open free on 12, 13 and 19 September. Seven need no booking. The Town Hall tour is capped at 30 and booking shuts on 11 September.

Nine buildings across Reigate and Banstead open free during Heritage Open Days this month, on three Saturdays and Sundays between 12 and 19 September. Seven of the nine need no booking at all. Two do, and one of those closes its booking on Friday 11 September.

The festival runs from 11 to 20 September 2026. Every entry below is taken from the organisers’ own listings on the Heritage Open Days Reigate & Banstead area list, which is where the exact times live. Nothing here costs anything to get in.

Saturday 12 September

  • Reigate Town Hall, Castlefield Road, RH2 0SH. 10am to 2pm. Pre-booking required, capped at 30 people, tours run about 45 minutes. Completed in 1901, the building originally housed the fire station, police station and law court as well as the council.
  • All Saints’ Church, High Street, Banstead, SM7 2NN. 10am to 4pm. No booking. Displays, stained glass, monuments, historic books, an illustrated talk, children’s activities and an afternoon churchyard walking tour. A portable ramp is available for the step at the north door.
  • Holmesdale Natural History Club Museum, 14 Croydon Road, Reigate, RH2 0PG. 10am to 4pm. No booking. The club, founded in 1857, opens its private museum of natural history, local history, local archaeology and geology. Ground floor access only for wheelchairs and pushchairs.
  • Church of the Wisdom of God, Buckland Road, Lower Kingswood, KT20 7DP. 10am to 4pm. No booking. The organisers describe it as unique in England: built like a Roman basilica and filled with treasures from ancient Rome and Byzantium.

Sunday 13 September

  • Church of the Wisdom of God, Lower Kingswood, again, 11am to 4pm.
  • St Andrew’s Church, Brighton Road, Kingswood, Tadworth, KT20 6QE. 1pm to 4pm. No booking.

Saturday 19 September

  • St Mary’s Parish Church, Chart Lane, Reigate, RH2 7RN. 10am to 4pm. No booking. Semi-Norman architecture, monuments, the organ, historical photographs, refreshments and lunch. The church is fully accessible, but the library and the bell tower are reached by stairs only.
  • The Cranston Library, inside the same church. 10am to 4pm. No booking, but only six people at a time and a narrow staircase with no alternative access, so expect a queue. Visits take about 20 minutes. It is an early 18th century parish library, a forerunner of the public library.
  • Gatton Park Heritage Tours, Rocky Lane, Reigate, RH2 0TD. Pre-booking required, book at gattonpark.co.uk. Two tours only, at 1pm and 1.30pm, maximum 20 people, about two hours each. Guided tours of the Capability Brown landscape and Edwardian gardens, including the Japanese garden and rock garden, plus the restoration of the Grade II* listed “Town Hall” monument. Access is through the grounds of the Royal Alexandra and Albert School, which is only open on open days.
  • Historic Vehicle Display, Tunnel Road, Reigate, RH2 9AY. 10am to 4pm. No booking. Surrey Vintage Vehicle Society vehicles on the pedestrian route running north from the Church Street and High Street junction.

The two you have to book, and the deadline

Everything else you can simply turn up to. These two you cannot.

Reigate Town Hall is ticketed through Eventbrite, run by the Mayor’s Office, with 30 places. The Heritage Open Days entry says booking closes at 10pm on Friday 11 September. Tickets were still showing as available when we checked on 3 September. One thing to watch: the Heritage Open Days listing gives the day as 10am to 2pm, while the Eventbrite page heads it 10am to 1.30pm. If you are booking a late slot, check the time on your ticket.

Gatton Park takes 20 people per tour and runs only two tours, both starting within half an hour of each other. That is 40 places for the whole day, booked through the Gatton Trust’s own site.

Reigate Caves open on the same Saturday, but they are separate

The caves are not part of Heritage Open Days and are not free. The Wealden Cave & Mine Society, which runs them under licence from the council, lists Saturday 12 September among its 2026 open days. It is the fifth and latest date on that page, after 9 May, 13 June, 11 July and 8 August, and the page describes the tours as running “throughout Summer 2026, on ONE Saturday per month”.

Entry is by pre-booking only. The society’s own wording is that it “cannot guarantee to sell any tickets at the cave on the open day”, and that if you have not bought beforehand “you may not be able to enter the caves”. It also asks visitors to leave 90 minutes between bookings if they want to see both Barons’ Cave and the Tunnel Road West Caves. Its ticket page would not load for us on 3 September, so we cannot confirm what is left.

What it means for you

  • Book the Town Hall now if you want it. Thirty places, one morning, and booking shuts on the evening of Friday 11 September.
  • Book Gatton Park now too. Forty places across the whole day.
  • The busiest single day is Saturday 19 September in Reigate, with the church, the Cranston Library and the vintage vehicles all within a short walk of the town centre. Tunnel Road runs off the Church Street and High Street junction, and St Mary’s is a few minutes up Chart Lane.
  • Parking: St Mary’s says there is on-street parking and a church centre car park directly opposite. For Tunnel Road, the organisers point to nearby car parks and meter bays. Our parking in Reigate page has the council tariffs.
  • Check before you travel. Heritage Open Days asks visitors to re-check entries for last-minute changes, and every one of these is run by volunteers.