This year’s two Heritage Open Weekends offered the public opportunities to go behind closed doors at many of the island’s historic venues.

Now in its 10th year, the Manx National Heritage open day programme offered open access and guided tours to properties, land and displays usually closed to the public.

It has grown from a small-scale with three activities, to one with more than 3,000 participants, 45 heritage partners, more than 100 volunteers and over 125 events.

Venues included Douglas Town Hall, the Steam Railway workshop, Albert Tower in Ramsey, the Golden Mill in Castletown, the Manx Museum and the Nautical Museum in Castletown.

At the Nautical Museum, where there are long-term plans to provide a permanent home for the the historic yacht Peggy, visitors were able to see plans showing how the building will look when works are completed.

At the Golden Mill in Castletown, visitors were given an insight into a slice of farming life from previous centuries by Jacob O’Sullivan, the grandson of Tony O’Sullivan who restored the mill in the 1980s.

The Manx Museum held a ’Please Touch the Artefacts’ archaeological session which included the chance to hold a set of nautical dividers that were retrieved by divers from the wreck of HMS Racehorse, which sank off Langness in 1822.