News Release

Artists and craftsmen are

as the Weald & Downland Museum celebrates

in May

This May is Museums & Galleries Month - a nationwide new millennium celebration of the rich collections found in Britain’s museums and galleries. The award-winning Weald & Downland Open Air Museum has drawn up an ambitious programme Inspired by the Past which will focus on the Museum’s own nationally-important collections of historic buildings and rural life.

Throughout May artists and craftsmen will be busy on a huge range of activities which draw on the Museum’s collections - recently designated by the Government for their outstanding importance - as inspiration for new creative work.

Set in 50 acres of beautiful countryside in the South Downs at Singleton, Chichester, West Sussex, the Museum was awarded a £5,000 grant by the Millennium Festival Fund for its programme for the Month.

Inspired by the Past has four main strands - artists in residence, learning to build in timber, historic gardens, and countryside and building skills. Visitors to the Museum and course students will be able to take part in a variety of activities within these themes. Inspired by the Past has four main strands - artists in residence, learning to build in timber, historic gardens, and countryside and building skills. Visitors to the Museum and course students will be able to take part in a variety of activities within these themes.

Three distinguished artists from the South East will be developing new creative works at the Museum. Tim Sandys-Renton will use the Museum’s 19^th century forge to create sculptures integrating traditional building materials and techniques with modern construction materials. The ideas will be taken further in June within the South East Arts’ Year of the Artist scheme, culminating in a large sculpture to be sited permanently at the Museum.

Sculptor Jonathan Froud and a colleague who work with water will use water-related features of the Museum site to explore ideas for a future project with the theme "Looking at Water". Visitors will be able to contribute their ideas and observations.

Painter, illustrator and graphic designer Gordon Rushmer will lead painting and drawing classes covering aspects of the Museum’s collections, such as tools, carts and timber buildings (17 May), interiors (19 May), farm animals (21 May), weathered surfaces (24 May) and house and garden (26 May). The pre-bookable classes are open to everyone. He will also work on his own on the site, creating work for an exhibition at the Museum on 1-6 August.

The skills of the traditional carpenter will be in focus in two workshops led by Museum research director Richard Harris and carpenters Joe Thompson and Roger Champion. Timber-framing from scratch (15-21 May) is a course unique to the Museum in which students learn how to create a small timber-framed building starting with the felled tree, using traditional methods and tools, including axes, adzes, froes and plumb-bobs. In the Lychgate workshop (15-17 May) participants will have the opportunity of repairing and restoring a local church lychgate.

Among visitors’ favourite delights at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum are the period gardens based on six historic homes dating from medieval to Victorian times. The Museum expects to launch a new CD-ROM this month, based on the gardens and designed to inspire creative gardening for today based on methods used since medieval times. Museum gardener Bob Holman will give an illustrated evening talk on The Museum’s Gardens through the Seasons, with a glass of wine, on 26 May.

The countryside and building skills theme during the Month includes a feast of different walks, talks and courses. Home Owner’s Day (11 May) provides a day of expert guidance for owners of old houses covering conservation, restoration, alteration and extension. There is a talk on Ancient Woodwork with Museum of London specialist Damian Goodburn (3 May), a hewing and sawing workshop, teaching the art of converting an oak log using traditional tools and techniques (13/14 May), a heavy horse experience day offering the chance to learn to plait a Shire horse and prepare it for show (21 May), and a glorious early morning walk in local woods to hear the dawn chorus, with breakfast at the Museum to follow(13 May).

Photographers and reporters please contact Gail Kittle, marketing officer, on 01243 811363.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Weald & Downland Open Air Museum exhibits over 45 historic buildings from town and country on its 50-acre site in the South Downs. It was recently Designated by the Government for the outstanding importance of its collections. The leading museum of buildings in England, it has developed a national reputation for the quality of its building conservation. The Museum runs an ambitious lifelong learning programme, with courses in building conservation for professionals and interested individuals and day schools in countryside skills. It attracts 140,000 visitors and over 3,000 course students a year.

Building exhibits include a medieval farmstead, a working watermill, a 16^th century market hall, a pair of 19^th century cottages, an interactive exhibition about traditional building techniques, historic gardens and farm livestock. The Museum also takes a special interest in nurturing rural skills and countryside crafts, growing thatching straw, producing hazel spars for thatching, milling flour, maintaining coppice woodland and marketing underwood products. There is a café next to the millpond and a well-stocked museum shop with books on countryside and buildings themes. Website: www.wealddown.co.uk.

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