Heritage Storage Open Day

After years of challenging work to get the HAAS aircraft hanger at Upper Heyford suitably fitted to store the country’s most precious heritage collections, Restore was ready to open its doors to the UK’s most important heritage and archiving institutions.

The day kicked off with food and beverages, our Upper Heyford cinema room and a heritage room full of artefacts from the site (including our two fully kitted out RAF heritage centre “pilots”). It was then off on the special heritage red routemaster to tour around the air base, then onto the old cold war command centre and finally, and most importantly, the heritage shelter itself. The sun had been blazing away all day (arranged via a small deal with the devil) and by the time we re-convened for lunch and final presentations everyone was in fine spirits and fully blown away by the quality of the facilities on offer. The feedback about the day has been overwhelmingly positive, which is a credit to all involved. It capped off a great month for the project which has seen the BBC do a fantastic piece on the project.

A special thanks goes out to all those who came to help on the day; Maxine Dobbie, Tammy McLellan, Antonia Thorne and Kevin Hayden, who all did a sterling job for the team. And finally huge congratulations to those who were instrumental in the birth and completion of this project to date; David English, Michael Watts and Chris Woods, take a bow sirs.

Take your own tour and email Michael.Watts@Restore.co.uk or read more about the heritage storage project here.