CLOTHES SHOW FROM YESTERYEAR

The Historic Clothing Exhibition - Monday 7 - Friday 18 April
‘Grow Your Own Clothes Day’  - Sunday 13 April
at
the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum
 

England’s leading museum of historic buildings and traditional rural life will showcase a fascinating collection of replica historical clothing at an exhibition during the Easter holidays. The Historic Clothing Project was set up by the Museum’s Interpretation Department with the aim of providing well-researched and constructed replica period clothing for use in the furnished buildings on site, and the Exhibition, entitled ‘Cutting Your Cloth’, will be a chance to display the items produced.

The Weald & Downland Open Air Museum is home to over 45 historic buildings which have been rescued from destruction and rebuilt in a beautiful 50-acre setting in the South Downs, bringing to life the homes, farms and workplaces of the south east over the past 500 years. The Museum’s Interpretation Team frequently works in replica period clothing with the public in the buildings, to demonstrate how our ancestors lived and worked. The clothing has been carefully researched and created at the Museum as part of our Historic Clothing Project to ensure it is as historically accurate as possible. The Project has been running for a year, it has been sponsored by the Friends of the Museum, and undertaken by staff and volunteers from the Museum’s Needlework Group.

The Exhibition will be held in the Museum’s fifteenth-century Crawley Hall during normal opening hours from Monday 7 – Friday 18 April. It is sure to prove popular with all visitors, and especially those with an interest in historic clothing, dress making or other textiles. Staff and volunteers will be on hand throughout to discuss the items and to explain the research behind their production.

During the Exhibition, the Museum will hold one of its regular themed ‘Focus Days’, which explore various intriguing aspects of our rural heritage and current work at the Museum. On Sunday 13 April the ‘Grow Your Own Clothes’ Focus Day will explore how clothing and fabrics were grown and made in Tudor and Victorian times. Visitors are encouraged to come in their own period costumes, and the activities and demonstrations on offer will appeal to all the family, as well as those with a particular interest in history, textiles and farming.

Children will enjoy the ‘Textile Timeline’, showing the history of cloth and where the Museum’s buildings fit into this. Children will be given pieces of cloth to hang on washing lines set up around various exhibit buildings, and there will be a chance to have a go at a sewing activity. Visitors can experience a ‘Flax Trail’ around the historic Bayleaf Farmstead, following the process of making linen clothes from the plant to the finished product. This will include flax processing, spinning, natural dyeing, weaving and a display of finished clothes. In the Jerwood Gridshell workshop, volunteers from the Museum’s Needlework Group will be demonstrating some of the different textile related crafts they undertake, both historic and modern.

The Historic Clothing Exhibition runs from Monday 7 - Friday 18 April, with the ‘Grow Your Own Clothes’ Focus Day on Sunday 13 April from 11-5pm. Both are included in the normal admission price of £8.50 for adults, over 60s £7.50, children £4.50, family £23.30, and under 5’s free. The Museum is open daily until December 23 from 10.30am - 6pm during British Summer Time, and 4pm for the rest of the year.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The award-winning Weald & Downland Open Air Museum has over 45 historic building exhibits and is designated by the Government for the outstanding importance of its collections. Exhibits include a medieval farmstead; a working watermill producing wholemeal stoneground flour; exhibitions focusing on traditional building techniques and agriculture; historic gardens, farm livestock and a working Tudor kitchen. The Museum runs a well-established programme of courses in building conservation and rural crafts.  There is a café which uses the Museum’s own flour and a shop with gifts and books on countryside and buildings themes.  The modern Downland Gridshell houses the Museum’s building conservation centre and artefact collection. There is a daily tour at 1.30pm when the Museum is open, and an appointments system for visits to the collections for research purposes.

NOTE TO EDITORS

Reporters and photographers are welcome at the Museum. For further information call the Museum information line on 01243 811348 or contact Cathy Clark, Marketing Officer

Tel: 01243 811014.
Fax: 01243 811475
Email: marketing@wealddown.co.uk.

Full details about the Museum and its activities can be found at www.wealddown.co.uk 

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