English Heritage Overseas Visitor Pass

The pass gives you free entry to any site where there is normally an admission charge. (If there is a special event, then there may be a small additional charge which is charged on top of the normal admission charge for paying visitors...)

They are excellent value and also give flexibility to pop in to other sites as you pass on your itinerary. If visiting Battle Abbey, the ruined Pevensaey Castle is only a short drive away and well worth adding to the list.

Free sites are those small sites where there aren't enough visitors to make it worth paying a custodian. Depending on teh site, many of them don't have set opening times and can be accessed during daylight hours.

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/overseas-visitors/

Just to reiterate what wasleys wrote, English Heritage maintain or own a number of properties or landmarks of historical interest. Many of them require substantial funds to maintain and those often require a paid entry to view them. Others however, do not such as the Royal Garrison Church or the King James Gate in Portsmouth, they can be visited by any member of the public free of charge.

As a member of English Heritage or with an overseas visitors pass you are entitled to free entry at ALL English Heritage properties and sites. You will not pay to enter Stonehenge, Dover Castle or Battle Abbey however members of the public who are not English Heritage members will have to pay.

It's an excellent pass and well worth the investment.

I love English Heritage and I have loved having their pass. The wonderful thing about the pass is that you can just stop in at any English Heritage site. I haven’t looked at their website in a few years, but the last time I used it to plan a trip, I found it cumbersome. The book that you will receive when you start your pass is very helpful.

As I recall, you don’t have to buy the pass ahead of time. You can get it at your first stop. (Double check this — I don’t want you to miss out)

Thanks so much for the clarification here 🥰

I’ll definitely be buying the family pass then because there are multiple sites that we will be close to during our vacation and would love to spend some time at!

Hello from Wisconsin,
I too have been looking at what is included in a Heritage Pass. And their website is most secretive about their possessions. My best education was to get a general tour book of the region I am planning to visit and seeing how many of the locations I was interested in visiting that were English Heritage sites. Turns out to be quite a few.

The next question dealt with how long a pass did I want. Because I will be in Yorkshire for a month, I would have to buy two visitor passes to cover the 30 days. A year-long membership is less expensive. So I will be purchasing a couple's year-long membership for my wife and myself and not a visitor's pass.

wayne INWI

Just to mention (unless they've changed how this works), we had to validate our pass at the first English Heritage site we visited.

There was a guard to whom I showed our receipt, and he said "Where did you get this?" I said I bought it online back in January (this was in May). He told me to go into the gift shop and have the shop attendant do the validation, which she did. I then had to come back and show it to the guard.

This was a Old Sarum, which is not one of the "big name" attractions, so they probably don't get a whole lot of visitors with the Overseas pass showing up with an unvalidated purchase receipt.

This was a Old Sarum, which is not one of the "big name" attractions, so they probably don't get a whole lot of visitors with the Overseas pass showing up with an unvalidated purchase receipt.

For some reason Old Sarum entrance staff are more officious than other English Heritage staff, even with British members, I have no idea why. Compare them to the typical lovely old women at the National Trust sites it's llike chalk and cheese. I wonder if the volunteer status has something to do with the nearby army barrracks?