Weald and Downland Living Museum



The Weald and Downland Living Museum (formerly known as the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum until January 2017) is an open-air museum in Singleton, West Sussex. The museum is a registered charity.

The museum covers 40 acres (16 ha), with over 50 historic buildings dating from 950AD to the 19th century, along with gardens, farm animals, walks and a mill pond.

The principal aim at the foundation of the museum was to establish a centre that could rescue representative examples of vernacular buildings from South East England, and thereby to generate increased public awareness and interest in the built environment.

The museum principally promotes the retention of buildings on their original sites unless there is no alternative, and encourages an informed and sympathetic approach to their preservation and continuing use.

The buildings at the museum were all threatened with destruction and, as it was not possible to find a way to preserve them at their original sites, they were carefully dismantled, conserved and rebuilt in their historical form at the museum.

These buildings, plus two archaeological reconstructions, help the museum bring to life the homes, farmsteads and rural industries of the last 950 years. Along with the buildings, there are "hands-on" activities, like cooking, and weaving, and a number of yearly activities, including seasonal shows, historic gardens weekend and Tree Dressing.

The Museum's Court Barn is the main building used by the restorers in The Repair Shop.

History
The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum was launched in 1967 by a small group of enthusiasts led by the museum's founder, the late Dr. J.R. Armstrong MBE, and it first opened to the public on 5 September 1970.

The principle of an open-air museum was well established in Scandinavia as a way to create a three-dimensional setting for explaining the way of living or working. Open-air museums allowed the buildings to give context to the techniques, equipment, furnishings, clothes and art of the period.