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Open House Festival is a fantastic annual celebration of some of London’s best-known buildings, which is why we were thrilled to open our doors once again to the public last week for the 2023 festival.

The annual event provides Londoners with a glimpse behind the day-to-day happenings at some of London’s most iconic destinations, providing us with a wonderful opportunity to showcase to the public some of the exciting work that happens here at the UUÂãÁÄÖ±²¥ of Chemistry at Burlington House.

Over 960 visitors took part in the various activities and experiences we put on around the venue throughout the day. Our tours of the building itself proved especially popular, showing around approximately 300 people across the 10 available tours on the day. Visitors were treated to a look at several items from our archives during the tour, including original articles and letters relating to the early efforts at organising the chemical elements.

Many members of our Outreach Fund were also in attendance on the day, helping to showcase just some of the fantastic work the project provides to help connect communities with the chemical sciences.

Our Science Room played host to many scientific discoveries, with visitors taking part in an interactive workshop led by volunteers from the University of Birmingham to investigate the impact of environmental pollution using daphnia and dyes. We were also joined by the brilliant team from Broadening Horizons, who helped to lead an activity on climate change and its impact around the chemistry of corals.

Speaking about taking part in Open House Festival 2023, our venue manager, Jess Gallagher said:

“Each year the Open House Festival provides us with an amazing opportunity to meet with the wider public and showcase some of the fantastic work our team does day in and day out.

“Burlington House is a historical venue that’s full of stories around every corner, and off the back of the venue recently being shortlisted for Best Historic Venue at this year’s London Venue & Catering Awards 2023, Open House Festival provided us with the perfect opportunity to let people come and visit and see what makes us such a special piece of history in London.”