The Autumn Countryside Show

Weald & Downland Open Air Museum,
Saturday 6 & Sunday 7 October 2007

All the sights, sounds and smells of a traditional harvest will delight visitors to the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum’s ever-popular festival of the countryside on 6 & 7 October. The Autumn Countryside Show allows an evocative glimpse of the past, when the whole rural community was involved in the vital tasks of harvesting and preparing the land for the following year’s crops, as well as showcasing and celebrating other traditional countryside activities. 

The beautiful Downland landscape of the Museum's 40-acre site at Singleton, near Chichester, West Sussex, is the ideal location for this annual event. Heavy horses, vintage tractors and a steam-driven threshing machine will be in action: the hissing and chugging of steam-driven corn threshing, and the scrape of metal on earth as horse and tractor-drawn ploughs eat into the ground remind us of the rural way of life which now seems lost but is really only a generation away.  

The working plough horses are always a favourite with visitors of all ages, with the Museum's own Shires among the teams of Suffolk Punch, Clydesdale, Ardennes and British Percheron draught horses that will also be at work. Vintage tractors will also be busy preparing the ground after the harvest, and there will be a display of tractors and farm implements.  

The Weald & Downland Open Air Museum is England’s leading museum of historic buildings, and some of the exhibits – farmhouses, barns and workshops – are thatched with wheat grown and threshed on the Museum site. The threshing of the crop – separating the grain from the ear – is one of the main attractions during the weekend, with a steam engine supplying the power for the threshing ‘drum’. Demonstrations of countryside skills, plus crafts and trade stands will add to the occasion, and give visitors the opportunity to find early Christmas gifts with a countryside theme. 

This year there will be a strong wood element to the Show, with displays, demonstrations and craft stalls featuring traditional woodland products ranging from wooden sculpture and beautifully turned bowls, to rocking horses and country chairs. There will be demonstrations from the Sussex Pole Lathers and the Solent Guild of Wood Carvers during the event. 

In appreciation of the role of man’s best friend in the countryside, there will be a Fun Dog Show on the Sunday. Owners are invited simply to turn up and enter their pets of any size, shape, pedigree (or lack of it!) for this entertaining competition. In addition, the weekend’s celebrations will include a Gun Dog display, working donkeys, a falconry display, and the chance for visitors to enjoy a horse-drawn wagon ride around some of the most beautiful areas on the Museum’s site. 

The Museum is open for the Autumn Countryside Show on Saturday 6 & Sunday 7 October, from 10.30am - 6pm. Admission prices are adults £8.25, over 60’s £7.25, children £4.40, family ticket £22.65. 

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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