Astounding inventions to be celebrated in Shoreham for Heritage Open Days

The Shoreham Society and partners have organised two days of free talks and activities on September 17 and 18, so people can discover more about the town's history over a fascinating and fun weekend.

Jenny Towler, vice-chairman, said: "We will celebrate Shoreham’s rich heritage in shipbuilding, aviation, railways and engineering with illustrated talks, local visits to iconic landmarks, a Gadget Trail and a competition to make an invention from recycled scrap."

All events are free and highlights include guided tours telling the story of Shoreham Airport, a talk about Bungalow Town and its inventive use of railway carriages for housing, an exploration of the military houseboats and Gadget Gameshow at The Scrap Space.

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Four hour-long guided tours telling the story of the UK's oldest airport through the historic airport buildings and the Shoreham Airport Collection of memorabilia, documents and photographs, will be available, at 11am and 2pm each day.

Step on Houseboat Verda, which was built in 1929 as a steam ferry boat for the Gosport to Portsmouth service and is now a work of art often used for community events, for an illustrated two-hour talk by Philip Simons at 2pm each day.

On the Gadget Trail, venues around the town will display curious gadgets in their windows for people see. These could be old or new, common or rare, useful or perhaps not, but definitely fascinating and challenging to figure out what they all are.

Visit www.shorehamsociety.org.uk/valuing-our-heritage for the full programme and to book places for the tours and talks.