Weald and Downland Living Museum – Unlocking Landscapes

In August I made my annual visit to the Weald and Downland Living Museum in the South Downs.

You can see my timber-framed building photo gallery here.

This is the first view you encounter inside the museum grounds after you pay your entry fee. Amazing to think the medieval hall house is from Cray in the London Borough of Bexley. It dates to the 1400s.

The Titchfield Market Hall has recently been restored. It’s looking very good indeed now. These halls were once more common in English market towns, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen one in situ. How times change.

The House from Walderton punctuates a quintessential Weald and Downland Museum scene.

These charming railway cottages are a game of two halves. In one part (here on the right) you can see the internal structure of the building. On the left hand side you can see a furnished representation of the cottage.

Poplar Cottage is one of my favourites. I’ve posted about it before.

Bayleaf‘s grandeur isn’t fully accounted for in these three images. It’s a large Wealden Hall that has been dated to the early 1400s.

Pendean sits out of view on the top slopes of the museum grounds. Its timbers are dated to 1609 (the year they were felled – amazing, isn’t it).

Tindalls Cottage is more recent, being from the 1700s. It has a bit of an eerie vibe about it, not sure why.

Mediaeval Hall dates from the 1600s. It’s a beauty.

I’ve been visiting the museum since 2018 but only managed to see the cart and vehicle section for the first time during this visit. Some of the wheels on show were huge. It would have been amazing to see these carts wending their way around Sussex once upon a time.

Thanks for reading

Oak timbers

In June I spent some time at the Weald & Downland Living Museum in Singleton, West Sussex. I was trying out a new wide-angle lens and in the perfect place to do so. I focused on Poplar Cottage, one of the most attractive ‘installations’ at the museum. Below are some images and also the italicised text which is written in the cottage’s binder, and therefore copyright Weald & Downland Living Museum.

Poplar Cottage was originally built on a small plot of common land on the edge of Washington Common in West Sussex. It is a building of a distinctive type with a hipped roof at one end and a gabled roof at the other. The gabled end originally contained a smoke bay.

Washington is a village at the foot of the South Downs in West Sussex, near Chanctonbury Ring. Its name relates to “Wassa’s people” rather than a place renowned for cleaning.

This cottage type is associated with ‘wasteland’ or ‘wayside’ encroachment onto common land. The earliest occupants of the cottage are likely to have been husbandmen or rural craftsmen. Husbandmen were socially inferior to yeomen but superior to labourers.

Many cottagers engaged in small-scale craft activities, like making wooden hoops for barrels or spars for thatching, or indeed shoe-making. We have evidence to suggest that a shoe-maker may have lived here in the 17th century.