House Magazine Spring 2008

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Cutting your Cloth – the Museum’s Historic Clothing Project gets into its stride 

The Museum’s historic clothing project was launched in 2007 and has had a very successful and productive first year. The idea of Hannah Tiplady, Head of Interpretation, the project is generously supported by the Friends of the Museum and aims to produce historically accurate clothing by learning, sharing and demonstrating traditional needlework and domestic handicraft skills such as knitting, weaving and embroidery.  

The Needlework Group is now well into its stride: its members are volunteers and staff from the interpretation team, with a huge range of skills and interests. The sessions have a strong skills-sharing element that has proved to be invaluable and will contribute to making the project sustainable in the long term. It meets every month and each session is led by project supervisors, Ruth Goodman and Barbara Painter. 

 In 2007 female Tudor clothing was produced for use in Bayleaf farmhouse and Winkhurst kitchen. Female Victorian clothing has also been made for Whittaker’s cottages and the school from West Wittering. In 2008 we will be making female clothing for Pendean farmhouse and starting to work on male Tudor clothing.  

Fundamental to the project is the process of making the clothes and learning about the history and techniques, working as accurately as possible. For instance, good quality linens, wools and cottons are bought; vegetable dyes used, and the Tudor and Stuart clothing is hand-sown. The Victorian clothing, by contrast, is chemically dyed and machine-sown. 

 The group is concerned with a wide range of traditional textile crafts as well as clothing. Members of the group produced a beautiful patchwork quilt for the double bed in Whittaker’s cottages and are now working on another quilt for the single bed. Tudor knitted stockings from wool spun by our Museum spinner, Steve Kennett, has also been produced. The flax crop produced last year at the Museum by Farm Manager Chris Baldwin (see pages 18/19) was harvested and spun as a ‘starter’ project and we are planning to take this further in 2008. On the strength of our flax project Parham House, West Sussex, has invited us to take part in its Fabric of Time weekend on 26/27 April (see www.parhaminsussex.co.uk for more information).  

The Museum Needlework Group at work in Crawley Hall. 
 

Focus Days highlight aspects of the Museum’s work

For 2008 the interpretation team has created a programme of four ‘Focus Days’, which will highlight aspects of the Museum’s work. Each will be based on a particular theme and will allow us to engage with our visitors through demonstrations, presentations and hands-on activities, giving opportunities for conversations about particular subjects or more generally about our work as Museum professionals.  

The first has already taken place. On 6 January we presented a day in Bayleaf devoted to the Tudor celebrations surrounding Twelfth Night. On 13 April the theme will be Grow Your Own Clothes to tie in with our exhibition of Historic Clothing made at the Museum (7-18 April in Crawley Hall). On 14 September in Winkhurst Tudor Kitchen the focus will be on Tudor baking and brewing, with Small Beer and the Upper Crust. Finally on 23 November we will start the Christmas season with our ‘Stir-up Sunday’ in Whittaker’s Cottages – a traditional Christmas pudding and cake bake.  

The possible themes for future ‘Focus Days’ are endless and fascinating. The wide range of work we carry out enables us to focus on many different areas, including food and farming, lifelong learning, our artefact collections, architecture, environmental work and historical research. The interpretation department will be working with others at the Museum to develop ideas for future years, and we expect this new format to become an indispensable part of our programme.  

Hannah Tiplady
Head of Interpretation 
 

Grow your own clothes  

One of the Interpretation Department’s new Focus Days at the Museum this year is called Grow Your Own Clothes. People visiting on 13 April will discover demonstrations of the processes involved in the production of clothing from wool and linen.  

The day has grown out of the Museum’s exploration of the materials and techniques used by the former inhabitants of our historic buildings, says Hannah Tiplady, the Museum’s Head of Interpretation. Two years ago the first crop of flax was grown, and after some practice with ‘retting’, fibre has been successfully produced which has been spun into linen yarn. Fibre production continued all through the winter and it is hoped to produce enough yarn to pilot a weaving project. Eventually the aim is to make an item of clothing from the Museum’s own yarn from its own crop.  

Flax is a member of the linseed family, writes Chris Baldwin, Farm Manager. When extracted the fibres are called line, the raw material for linen. Releasing the fibres is a long and smelly process. Firstly the plant is pulled from the ground, not cut, as the fibres run the full length of the plant. They are then tied into bundles, or beets, and secured by string, and stooked in the field ready for collection.  

The beets are then put into a retting pond to rot, which takes 10-15 days. Soaking the stems helps release the fibres from the other plant matter. When retting is complete the beets are removed from the pond, the string cut and the plants spread out on grass or stubble to dry. The fibres must be constantly turned to dry properly: if this is not done they continue to ret which results in discoloured fibres.  

Once dry they are gathered and tied again in bundles and stored until required. To extract the fibres the plant has to be broken up to remove as much of the woody plant material as possible. The tool used for this is similar to a wooden ‘guillotine’ with one or two blades, and a hand bat is used afterwards. Together they remove about 80% of unwanted material.  

CLOTHES

Wood, the Museum and me

My interest in historic timber structures dates back to my early teaching days. It was the great medieval barns that fascinated me, but given that so much work had been done on medieval timber, when I came to choosing a research subject I decided to look at the hidden carpentry of buildings from the 17th century onwards.

Truth to tell, this was then simply an interest in the history of engineering (or proto-engineering), with no particular interest in conservation. That came when I went to America to look at colonial buildings, to explore possible connections with English carpentry. It was contact there with Lee Nelson of the National Park Service that aroused my curiosity in conservation. It became clear to me that there were few engineers who had a feeling for historic structures and particularly historic timber, but also that it was perfectly possible to give other conservation professionals a qualitative understanding of structural behaviour.

In what is so often a collaborative activity, what non-engineers need is the ability to understand the options open to them in the repair of structures, and to be able to discuss these in a sensible way with the engineers that they employ. That is what I try to teach in the courses at the Museum, passing on information to those with little mathematical background. This means finding ways of explaining structural behaviour in terms that these students can understand. I am often tempted to think that this qualitative approach to structures would be of benefit to engineers dealing with historic structures who often seem rather too ready to reach for their computers to do the work rather than thinking about the structure itself!

David Yeomans busy with calculations

This teaching also means relating structural principles to the behaviour of the specific material, which has its own characteristic behaviour, and to the methods used by the craftsmen who are carrying out the repairs. This is the other interest because dealing with repairs involves a much closer contact with the building itself and with those who are to carry out the work.

Teaching at the Weald & Downland Museum involves the interesting challenge of coming to terms with both the needs of the students and those of the material. It is also good to draw on my historical research and to be able to teach the history of those structures that have had less recognition than the very visible medieval timber frames, but which are nevertheless an important part of our built heritage.

Bread and potatoes – local children discover the source of their food!

The Year of Food and Farming – aimed at helping children learn about the countryside and where their food comes from through memorable learning experiences – has so far proved a great success at the Museum.  

Bartons Infant School, visiting in October last year, particularly enjoyed the programme. As part of their learning experience, the school’s Year 1 children harvested potatoes with the Museum’s stable team and Shire horses, which pulled an implement to expose the potatoes, creating much excitement amongst the pupils! The school has planned a number of return visits during the year, and will use the Museum site to carry out work on their Wheels and Planting projects.  

Children from St Anthony’s School, who also harvested potatoes, made a second visit in November to make bread. Each student had the chance to grind grain using a hand quern, before making the bread in the Museum’s working Tudor kitchen. They also visited the working watermill to see flour production on a grander scale. They finished their day, back at school, digging in to a well deserved snack of baked Museum bread and homemade soup.

“We have been delighted to take part in the Year of Food and Farming project at the Museum.  The children have loved taking part in the activities and are really benefiting from the hands-on experiences.” 

Zoe Gordon, Year 1 teacher, Bartons Infant School

Follow up work back in the classroom, from St Anthony’s School.  

“A variety of real ‘hands-on’ experiences for our students in a first class learning environment. Most of all, it has been fun!” 

Larrie Robinson, teacher, St Anthony’s School
 

Royal Gold Medal for Downland Gridshell architect  

The architect of the Museum’s award-winning Downland Gridshell building, Ted Cullinan, has been awarded the 2008 Royal Gold Medal for Architecture, a gift of the Queen made by the Royal Institute of British Architects.  

The Downland Gridshell taking shape in 2001.

This most prestigious prize is awarded only to the most eminent in the profession, and The Guardian architecture correspondent, Jonathan Glancey, says we might now expect several of his buildings to be candidates for listing. He cites Fountains Abbey Visitors Centre (1992), North Yorkshire; Cambridge University Centre for Mathematical Sciences (2003) and the Downland Gridshell (2002) itself. Ted’s own home in Camden Town (1964) is already listed, as are the ziggurat halls of residence at the University of East Anglia (1962). 

Ted Cullinan on the left, with Richard Harris of Buro Happold Engineers,
during the early days of the building’s design at the Museum, 1997.
An early template lies on the ground behind them.

“The Downland Gridshell, a conservation workshop at the Weald and Downland Museum, West Sussex, has all the attributes of a Grade 1 building in the making,” says Glancey, who goes on to call the Gridshell “one of the finest and most original of all British buildings of the past 25 years.

“This captivating rural building is made from strips of green timber, is much liked by the Prince of Wales, and is about as genuinely ‘sustainable’ as contemporary architecture gets.”

Born in 1931 and educated at Cambridge, Berkeley and the Architectural Association, London, Cullinan set up his own practice in 1959, before working freelance for Lasdun and establishing the Edward Cullinan Architects co-operative in 1965. Some of today’s most original architects worked for him, says Glancey. “Ideas clearly come quickly to him. A fluent draftsman, he draws flowing sketches for me of how the building I consider to be his very best work, the Downland Gridshell, came into being,” writes Glancey. Ted Cullinan worked with structural engineer Ted Happold to design the flowing, hour-glass shaped, timber-clad gridshell.

Ted told Glancey: “I liked making this building as much as designing it. We had brilliant carpenters and other craftsmen and technicians who knew exactly how to bend long stretches of green wood to best effect … Making this building was like knitting with great threads of architecture.”

Cullinan adds “… here we had exceptional clients who really care about architecture. Most potential clients would opt for the sort of portal-framed timber building you can see advertised in Exchange & Mart”.

I remember those early days of planning the Museum’s new building conservation centre and collections store as heady times. The Heritage Lottery Fund was in its infancy and determined only to support innovative structures. My late husband, Chris, who as Museum Director led the Museum through its 27 foundation years, was determined to draw down resources from this new funding supply as early as possible. He and the then Research Director, Richard Harris, drew up a list of possible architects and after much discussion about sites and appropriate structures settled on Ted Cullinan as the best of their shortlist of prominent British architects to design something mind-blowing but relevant to the Museum and its themes.

Chris Zeuner with the model of the Gridshell in 1998.

A visit to Ted’s offices in London assured Chris that the Museum had chosen the right man and he returned full of tales of Ted’s ability to draw “flowing sketches” of a building which was to be revolutionary for an open air museum at the time and had the ability to establish for its client far wider and broader credentials than the Museum could have hitherto dreamed.

Diana Zeuner

People - Welcome to new staff and volunteers and some farewells

Obituary - Neil McGregor-Wood

Neil McGregor-Wood, a trustee of the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum for 20 years, died at the age of 81 on 5 January following a severe stroke on Christmas Eve. He had been receiving treatment for cancer at St Richard’s Hospital, Chichester.

Neil, who also served as Museum vice chairman from 1992 until two years ago, had been as active as ever until late summer last year. Many museum visitors, staff and volunteers will remember him for his cheerful linking commentary at the Museum’s popular Rare Breeds Show, which he undertook for many years. As a trustee Neil’s wise counsel has been of great benefit to the Museum.

With his wife Rosemary, Neil moved to Chichester in 1986, and then to Arundel. Rosemary contributed a poetry evening to the Museum’s events calendar in 1991.

Neil was an immensely energetic man. He was known to many in the area for his passion for the stage. Only last summer he had appeared at West Dean, well into his 81st year. He was involved in four dramatic groups and had appeared in over 30 productions since his retirement to Sussex. He was also a Chichester Festival Theatre describer for the visually impaired.

Neil’s early years were spent in North London. He attended Rendcomb College in the Cotswolds, and after National Service, went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in law in 1950. He qualified as a barrister in 1953 and pursued a career in insurance in the City. He rose to the post of Managing Director of Minet Life & Pensions and was also a General Commissioner of Income Tax.

Neil had been an active local politician, first in New Malden, and then Ockham, where he was chairman of the parish council for six years and cochaired the campaign group which effectively blocked plans to develop the airfield at Wisley. He had been chairman of the board of governors of Rokeby Preparatory School in Kingston and on the board of Ripley Court School. After retirement he joined the board of St Anthony’s School, Chichester. He had also been vice chairman of the New Park Centre, Chichester, and a member of the Chichester Cathedral Council and Deanery Synod.

Neil remained a trustee of the Minet Charitable Trust, a benefactor of many projects at the Museum, until his death. He was also a freeman of the Honourable Society of Ironmongers.

Neil, who will be remembered most for his wit, warmth and active mind, was poignantly commemorated by his family in a moving ceremony at Chichester Cathedral, where he worshipped and was well-known. A memorial service will follow.

Neil is survived by his wife of 55 years, Rosemary, and his four children.

Obituaries

Al Preddy

Al Preddy became a volunteer at the Museum 20 years ago, working on Thursdays undertaking all the various duties. Since the opening of Longport as the Museum’s entrance facility he has mostly worked in the shop, but he also distributed Museum publicity leaflets and posters to pubs and other public places in the Lavant/Singleton/ East Dean area. He was also a volunteer for the local British Legion; Talking News for the Blind and Chichester Lions Club and also provided transport for a local doctor’s surgery and was a cricket scorer at Arundel.

Al Preddy

News in Brief

Letters

Ancient ham!

Stewarding can glean some fascinating stories from visitors which add so much history to the lives of people who once lived in our ancient buildings.

A visitor last June said he lived in the cottage next door to Poplar in 1956. He worked as a woodsman and farmer. All three cottages had tiled roofs with no sign of earlier thatch other than the steep slope. His cottage and number three had chimneys but Poplar – derelict by this time – still had the original smoke bay.

Peter, his neighbour, was having problems with a smoking fire. He called in the sweep who kept adding rod after rod, far more than the height of the chimney. He sent Peter outside to see if he’d reached beyond the stack. Nothing. He added yet more rods and became really concerned when the twenty-second rod hit a wall. Investigation showed the rods had looped round in the chimney to hit the other half of the now enclosed original smoke bay.

As he withdrew the rods a huge soot-encrusted lump landed in the fireplace. It turned out to be a whole ham – and it was still edible!

Beryl Armstrong