One weekend a year, buildings that are usually shut open their doors for nothing, and Stirling does it particularly well. Doors Open Days returns to the Stirling area on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September 2026. Every venue on the programme is free, no ticket required, and 2026 marks the 32nd year the festival has run here.
It is part of Scotland's largest free festival, which celebrates heritage and the built environment and opens more than a thousand venues across the country each September. We are a Stirling family firm working out of a converted blacksmith's a mile below the castle, so a weekend built entirely around getting inside old buildings is very much our sort of thing.
What is open in the Stirling area
The Stirling programme spreads well beyond the city itself, out into Dunblane, Bridge of Allan, Kippen and Blair Drummond. Venues taking part include:
- Bannockburn House, with history tours
- Camphill Blair Drummond House
- Dunblane Museum
- Bridge of Allan Well House Restoration Project
- Allan's Primary School Bastion
- Central Library tours
- Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church
- Kippen Parish Church, Kippen Old Kirkyard and Kippen Smiddy
Opening times vary from venue to venue and some of the smaller ones run limited slots, so check the Doors Open Days Stirling listing before you plan your route rather than turning up on spec.
How to plan the weekend
Two days is more than it sounds, but the venues are scattered, so a bit of planning pays. Pick a cluster rather than criss-crossing the county. The city centre sites sit close enough to walk between, and Kippen makes a good half day on its own if you fancy the country end of the programme.
Wear shoes you can stand up in, take cash for the odd donation box, and do not try to do everything. Half the pleasure is spending twenty minutes longer somewhere than you meant to.
One more old building, open every day
We should be straight with you: we are not on the Doors Open Days programme, and that is our own decision rather than an oversight. We are not a free venue and we are not going to pretend to be one. Our tours and tastings are paid.
What we do have is an open door on both days. Saturday 11am to 5pm, Sunday 12pm to 5pm. A walk-in tasting is £15 a head, takes about twenty minutes and needs no booking, which suits a weekend already built around dropping into places on a whim. If the free list runs out before the day does, we are two minutes down from the castle.
The distillery lives in the Old Smiddy, the town's former blacksmith's, and there is a pleasing symmetry in Kippen Smiddy being on the programme the same weekend. It is where Stirling Gin is made in small batches around wild Stirlingshire nettles that June forages herself, and it is now home to Scotland's smallest whisky distillery.
Have a look at how to plan your visit and how to find us, browse the Stirling gin collection, or book one of our distillery experiences to round the weekend off.
Doors Open Days runs 26 and 27 September 2026 and every venue on the programme is free. Fill your boots, and if you finish the list early, the Old Smiddy is open both days.