YOUNG HEIFER CALVES
NOW IN TRAINING AT HISTORIC MUSEUM

Gwynne and Graceful join the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum

A pair of distinctive Sussex Cross Shorthorn heifer calves is the latest addition to the team of working animals at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum at Singleton, near Chichester, West Sussex. Gwynne and Graceful may look cute and cuddly now at three months old, but when they reach full size in three to four years time, they will be fully trained working animals undertaking a range of key seasonal tasks on the Museum’s open field strips. 

England’s leading museum of historic buildings and traditional rural life has for many years used Shire horses in traditional farming on its beautiful 50 acre site in the South Downs. Gwynne and Graceful join the existing team of four horses and are already beginning their training, which when completed, will see them at work in the fields for tasks such as ploughing, harrowing, rolling and carting. In the meantime, visitors to the Museum will be able to see Gwynne and Graceful being put through their paces or relaxing in the fields after a training session! 

Working cattle were once a familiar sight in the countryside prior to the more widespread introduction of Shire horses in agriculture, and their use gradually declined throughout the 1800s. The last team of Sussex Cattle in the county finished working in 1926, and Gwynne and Graceful, with their distinctive dark brown colouring and gentle nature, will be the first and only pair of cows to work the land in the area for many years. 

As well as the calves and Shire horses, the Museum also rears ginger-coloured Tamworth pigs, traditional breed sheep and fowl, which all play a part in its theme of ‘Field to Feast’. ‘Field to Feast’ runs throughout the Museum site and actively demonstrates the processes involved in getting food from the field to the feast. Wholemeal grain is ground into flour in the seventeenth century watermill; visitors can sample Tudor food in the working Tudor kitchen; and traditional cereal crops have been sown in the field strips. For the first time last year, old varieties of vegetables have been grown on a larger scale and are available to buy seasonally in the Museum shop and at the Farmers Market in nearby Chichester. Evening Tudor suppers are also hosted in Bayleaf medieval farmhouse on selected Saturday evenings during the summer months.