| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | The Museum's got Talent / The Museum's got Talent exhibition held in November 2009 filled everyone with awe and pride as a collection of fine art and traditional crafts was mounted for display in the Jerwood Gridshell space. Items included patchwork and embroidery, woden sculpture, furniture and boxes, painting, photography, calligraphy, drawing, crochet, lace, ceramics, blacksmithing, jewellery, miniature furniture and dolls' houses. All the work was created by volunteers and staff. |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Collections Team Update - recent acquisitions / A farmer, who had moved from Midhurst to Warlingham in Surrey, acquired, among other agricultural detritus, a milking bail. The milking bail is a movable milking parlour, towed by a tractor. They were in common use on dairy farms from the 1930s to the 1970s, having been devised in the early 1920s by Arthur J Hosier of Wexcombe in Wiltshire. The example acquired by the Museum bears his company trade name. His idea was to take the milking machinery to the herd and milk in situ, rather than move the cattle twice a day into a permanent parlour.
The bail acquired by the Museum is in good condition and neighbours recalled it being on the farm from the mid-1930sand, unusually, it had been housed inside one of the barns for most of its life. Much of the actual milking equipment such as the pipes and containers is missing, but the main structure shows how it operated. Some repair and consolidation is required and its permanent home will be at the end of the Vehicl \\ |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Getting the Picture - how the Museum trains its volunteers / Visitor surveys comment on how much they value the personal contact with volunteers and staff who steward the buildings and elsewhere on site, and how helpful and informative they are. Although the musuem has always provided a training for volunteers, this year this training will be greatly increased and intensified. Over 30 sessions have been introduced covering a number of subjects. The two-hour long sessions are led by Museum staff and include talks and discussion and site visits. All attendance will be recorded so that volunteers can be allocated tasks for which they have the appropriate knowledge.
Mostly volunteers arrive at the museum individually, but last year there were a number of group arrivals, the first of which was a group of five highly-skilled men who had been conserving and running Shipley Mill. They now work alongside the Tuesday Gang. One week in late October 2009 three large teams arrived at the Museum from the Body Shop, \\ |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Mike Doran -- obituary / Mike Doran, who died in November, was Honorary Treasurer of the Friends from 1990 until 1997. A major contribution he made was moving the Friends |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Woodcarvers demonstrate their skills / The Daywood Carvers |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Ploughmen at Singleton / Ploughmen at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Four legs, furry legs, feathered legs . . . / One of the South |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Symposia, overseas study visits, breakfast tastings and dog shows! / The Museum has hosted a diverse mix of group and space hire bookings recently, including a Harness Club Show, a Pony Club Gymkhana and a Dog Show to raise funds for Singleton Playgroup. Crawley Hall has served as the venue for meetings of the Expedition Engineers, the Care Commission and a breakfast tasting meeting for bed and breakfast proprietors staged by Taste of Sussex. A highlight was the visit of 12 museum directors and Department of Culture personnel from Vietnam. Their study tour of the UK included a visit to the Museum to learn about our formal and informal lifelong learning strategies. The Frank Gregory Symposium in September brought together all the work completed on the archives he left to the Museum: SPAB Mills section members were among the many delegates. This Autumn we look forward to welcoming the Society for Folk Life Studies |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Volunteer obituaries -- Michael Farr, Audrey Hunt / Michael Farr began as a volunteer at the Museum in 1992 attending regularly on Tuesdays. He soon became a guide, assisting with the many school and adult groups, in particular parties from France. When the Gridshell opened he conducted daily tours of the building. Michael, 83, died following a heart operation, and leaves his wife, Janet. Audrey Hunt worked for many years in the Museum shop. Her husband, Roland, was also a Museum volunteer. |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | David Biart -- obituary / David Biart, who died in November in Canada, was Chairman of the Museum from 1982 to 1987, becoming a Vice President in 1995.
David was senior partner at the West Sussex law company, Thomas Eggar & Son, when he joined the trustees in 1979, taking over as Chairman from Geoffrey Godber three years later. Active and successful in the role, he took an interest in the wider museum sector and in 1984 and 1985 gave talks to seminars run by the Association of Independent Museums (AIM) on the legal responsibilities of trustees. He also contributed to an AIM Guideline on The Role of Trustees in Independent Museums.
In 1985-86, together with the Honorary Treasurer and Secretary, Jimmy Woollings, he presided over changes to the Museum |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Gonville Cottage |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Forging links / The British Artist Blacksmith Association (BABA), whose members produced the iron waymarkers in the Museum |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Field strips and hops / In Autumn 2009 we established a new group of field strips in the paddock between Bayleaf and Pendean farmhouse. The original strips had become extremely hard to maintain because of the damage by rabbits, pheasants, deer and badgers, but in their new position they can be more easily protected, and more easily seen by visitors. They will be worked by the oxen, which now work as a team of four, using a medieval three-course rotation.
In place of the original strips we have established three small fields which will be planted in a rotation of grass and long-straw Triticale. Triticale is a wheat-rye cross that produces good thatching straw but being awned (i.e. with sharp spikes surrounding the ear) is resistant to badger and deer attack. This will ensure that we have a crop of wheat to thresh at the Autumn Countryside Show, and our thatcher, Chris Tomkins, has supplied the seed and will use the crop.
Farm Manager Chris Baldwin has also established a hop garden in the field in front o \\ |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | From thresher to roof / At the Autumn Countryside Show visitors were treated to a demonstration of
thatching with the Museum |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Interpreting Hangleton cottage / Hangleton |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | "Building Conservation Comes of Age" Conference / The Adult Learning Department at the Museum will mark the 40th anniversary with a conference, Building Conservation Comes of Age, a one-day event exploring building conservation |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Talking walls / Filming at Bayleaf last year for a BBC4 series If walls could talk with Lucy Worsley, Curator of the Royal Palaces. A history of the home, it traces how rooms have progressed and altered through time, centred around the presenter |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | Celebrating the age of steam / The Museum |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | From the chairman - On being a Social Enterprise / As I write this column our county is in the grip of an icy blast with widespread deep snow, disruption on our roads and to other transport services, and loss of power supplies to many homes. Indeed we lost power at home for some 43 hours. One side effect is that never before have we met so many of our neighbours! The media is full of stories of local communities working together to deal with the crisis, for example to ensure schools open and children get through to sit their exams.
The creation and maintenance of a charitable enterprise like our Museum has depended on massive community support over the years and it continues to do so. It is |
| 2010/3 | Magazine / Spring 2010 | The Museum celebrates four decades of achievement / 2010 is the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum at Singleton, and from early beginnings it has grown to become England |
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