Exhibit developments: recent and future projects

Church from South Wonston, Hampshire: the timbers and corrugated iron cladding have been repaired and early in 2011 it will be re-erected on a site in the spinney north of Whittakers Cottages. It will be furnished and presented as it was when it was first built in 1908.

In November 2010 we completed the construction of a new building called the Building Crafts Gallery. Displays inside will show the tools, methods and materials of traditional building crafts, and it will also be used by school parties as a base and for workshops. This project was generously supported by the DCMS/Wolfson Galleries Improvement Fund and the Foyle Foundation.

The “Singleton Spire”. This is a combination of two projects, one on top of the other! We have built a small enclosure in which to display a bell frame from the church at Stoughton. On top of the enclosure is a small timber spire, on which students are taught the art of shingling by Peter Harknett. This project has been generously supported by the Worshipful Company of Carpenters.

A long (130 ft) open-sided shelter has been built in the long narrow gap between two hedges between Whittaker’s Cottages and the Poplar Cottage clump. The shelter is used to display items of horse-drawn transport and agricultural equipment from our collections. This project was generously supported by the DCMS/Wolfson Galleries Improvement Fund.

The shed from Coldwaltham, which has stood on its woodland site since the early 1970s, has been moved to a new site on the south (uphill) side of our new woodyard behind Pendean.

In the late-1980s we dismantled a hay barn from Manor Farm, Ockley, Surrey, and it has been re-erected near Redvins yard. It is used to house important items from the collections, including the 1863 threshing machine that has been restored with the help of a PRISM fund grant.

Future building exhibit project: Tindalls Cottage

This 17th century timber-framed cottage with a brick chimney dismantled from a site close to the Bewl Bridge reservoir near Ticehurst, Kent, will be sited on the hillside close to the Bayleaf paddocks.It was a timber-framed cottage with a brick and stone chimney, dated on stylistic grounds to 1675-1725, but perhaps dating from 1721 when there was a new tenancy. It represents a development from Poplar Cottage, in that the late-17th century alterations to Poplar Cottage (the addition of a rear outshot and a stone chimney) were present in Tindalls from the start, but Tindalls was a little superior to Poplar Cottage: the tenants occupied about 26 acres of land, whereas Poplar Cottage is thought to have been the home of a landless labourer. Also, Tindalls had a fireplace on the first floor, and a floored attic, giving better accommodation than Poplar Cottage.

Most of the timbers were re-used, which is often the case in 17th century buildings, and we will examine them carefully to see what can be discovered about their origins.