Collections Development

Reports on the development of the Museum collections are listed below.  Each report will contains details of acquisitions during the period, conservation and renovation works.  Click for full details and pictures.

bullet Collections Report October 2005.
bullet Collections Report December 2005 - Donation of Trug Workshop Contents
bullet Collections Report Spring 2006
bullet Collections Report Autumn 2006
bullet Museum acquires a 'Tin Tabernacle'
bullet Collections Report Spring 2007
bullet Collections Report Autumn 2007
bullet Tony Whites collection of harness and horse drawn equipment
bullet Threshing train display for Ockley hay barn
bullet Collections Report Spring 2008

 

Building Developments

Projects for 2007/2008

A total of seven small to medium sized building projects is in our current programme, and subject always to planning permission and funding, we hope to complete them all within the next twelve months — and several much sooner.

bulletChurch from South Wonston (the “Tin Tabernacle”) — repair and re-erection on a site in the spinney north of Whittakers Cottages.
bulletThe “Singleton Spire”. This is a combination of two projects, one on top of the other! We have been offered a bell frame from the church at Stoughton, and we have built a small enclosure in which to display it. On top of the enclosure will be a small timber spire, on which students will be taught the art of shingling by Peter Harknett. This project is supported by the Sussex County Association of Change Ringers and the Carpenters’ Company.
bulletA small shelter in which to display three of our most important horse-drawn vehicles — the Reading van (Gypsy caravan), the Reynolds van (containerised transport) and our best preserved and provenanced “living van”. The shelter will take the form of an outshot behind the Witley joiners’ shop.
bulletA long (130 ft) open-sided shelter, to be built in the long narrow gap between two hedges between Whittaker’s Cottages and the Poplar Cottage clump. The shelter will be used to house items of horse-drawn transport and agricultural equipment from our collections, and will of course be accessible to visitors. We await the result of a grant application to the DCMS/Wolfson fund for this project.
bulletThe 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.
bulletIn the late-1980s we dismantled a hay barn from Manor Farm Ockley, and we propose to re-erect it in the corner of the back road that runs from Gonville Drive to Redvins yard. It will be used to house important items from the collections, including the 1863 threshing machine currently being restored with the help of a PRISM fund grant.
bulletEnglish Heritage have asked us to help them carry out research into Horsham slab roofing methods, so we have offered to build a small timber building, about 28ft x 10ft, in Lower Gonville field adjacent to Gonville Drive. This will be used as our ticket office when we use the fields for overflow car-parking. It will look like a small weather-boarded barn, with a Horsham slab roof, and will be in place for four years — anticipating that by that time we will be ready to carry out our Access Project development in that area of the site.
 

Future Building Exhibit Projects

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 will be the first to be repaired in the new Building Conservation Centre, the 'Downland Gridshell'.

Tindalls is now the building that has been in storage at the Museum the longest - since 1974 - and we are very excited about the prospect of proceeding with its analysis, repair and re-erection.

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 the 17th century, and we will examine them carefully to see what can be discovered about their origins. This examination will be the first working exercise to take place in the Building Conservation Centre reinterpretation. 

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