Creating a More Accessible Weald & Downland Living Museum for Everyone

At the Weald & Downland Living Museum, we believe history should be accessible to everyone.

For more than fifty years, the Museum has been dedicated to rescuing historic buildings, preserving traditional skills and sharing the stories of ordinary rural people whose lives helped shape our landscape and communities. From Saxon halls and medieval farmsteads to Tudor workshops and Victorian cottages, every building has a story worth telling, and every visitor deserves the opportunity to discover it. That belief sits at the very heart of who we are.

Our purpose has never simply been to conserve historic buildings. It is to keep rural history alive by creating meaningful connections between people, places and the past. We are a museum where visitors are encouraged to step inside, touch, explore, learn and become part of the story themselves. As an independent educational charity, we exist to preserve these extraordinary buildings and the knowledge they contain, while ensuring they remain relevant, welcoming and inspiring for generations to come.

It is because of those values that we are delighted to announce one of the most significant accessibility improvement projects ever undertaken at the Museum.

 

Investing in a Museum for Everyone

Beginning on Monday 27 July, work will commence on a major programme of accessibility improvements that will create an extensive network of accessible pathways across the Museum.

This significant investment, made possible through funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), represents far more than a construction project. It is an investment in our visitors, our community and our belief that everyone should be able to enjoy the remarkable collection of buildings, stories and landscapes that make the Weald & Downland Living Museum so special.

Once complete, the new timber-edged accessible pathways will link together many of our most popular historic exhibits, creating a continuous route that allows visitors using wheelchairs, mobility scooters, pushchairs, or those with limited mobility, to explore a much larger proportion of the Museum with greater ease and confidence.

The route will connect many of the Museum’s best-loved buildings, including Bayleaf Farmstead, the Kingsdown Horse Whim, Poplar Cottage, Titchfield Market Hall, the Horsham Shop, the Plumber’s Workshop, Court Barn, North Cray, the Joiner’s Shop, the Mill, Lower Lavant and the Toll House.

Just as importantly, many of the collection buildings along this route will also receive step-free access wherever possible, allowing visitors not only to travel between the buildings more comfortably, but to step inside and experience the rich stories they contain.

For many visitors, this will open up parts of the Museum that have previously been difficult or impossible to reach.

 

Preserving the Past While Preparing for the Future

Since Roy Armstrong first imagined an open-air museum where threatened historic buildings could be rescued and preserved, the Museum has continually evolved to meet the needs of new generations while remaining faithful to its founding vision. His belief that understanding our own communities helps us better understand the wider world still guides the Museum today. Accessibility is a natural continuation of that vision.

Preserving buildings is only part of our responsibility. We must also ensure that people can experience them. Every family discovering a Tudor farmhouse together. Every grandparent visiting with grandchildren. Every wheelchair user stepping inside a medieval hall. Every visitor taking the time to slow down, breathe deeply and immerse themselves in a thousand years of rural life.

These moments matter. They are exactly why projects like this are so important. As the Museum continues to grow as a place of learning, discovery and shared experience, creating inclusive access is not simply about meeting standards. It is about living out our values every single day.

 

Carefully Designed for a Historic Landscape

Working within a nationally important collection of rescued historic buildings requires careful planning and sensitivity. The new paths have therefore been designed to complement, rather than compete with, the Museum’s unique landscape.

Each pathway will be finished using Breedon gravel, matching the existing accessible route between the Gallery, Museum Shop and Gateway buildings. The material has been carefully chosen because it provides a durable, accessible surface while blending naturally into the rural environment and preserving the historic character visitors know and love.

Alongside the new pathways, the project will also improve drainage across several areas of the site. A new French drain will be installed between Titchfield Market Hall and Cowfold Barn, together with additional drainage improvements where required. These works will help manage surface water more effectively, reducing muddy conditions and ensuring paths remain accessible throughout the changing seasons.

This investment will benefit visitors not only this year, but for many years to come.

 

Looking Beyond This Phase

This programme also represents the beginning of an even broader commitment to accessibility. Plans are already progressing for the next phase of improvements, including accessible pathways throughout the Toll House Garden and improved access to the Tudor Kitchen through both step-free and compliant stepped entrances.

Each phase builds upon the last, gradually creating a Museum that welcomes more people to experience more of our extraordinary collection. It reflects our ambition to ensure that the stories we preserve are stories that everyone has the opportunity to discover.

 

Keeping the Museum Open

The works will be undertaken by Horsham-based Hobart Paving & Civil Engineering, a contractor with considerable experience delivering projects within parks, schools and environmentally sensitive locations throughout West Sussex.

To minimise disruption, construction will take place in manageable sections of approximately 50 metres at a time. Once completed, each section of path will be allowed time to settle and harden before reopening, ensuring a durable finish that will serve visitors well into the future. Temporary Heras fencing will safely separate active work areas, while new interpretation panels will explain exactly what’s happening, why the work is taking place and how these improvements will benefit visitors for years to come.

Although some routes around the Museum will temporarily change during construction, the Museum will remain open throughout the project, and every effort will be made to ensure visitors continue to enjoy a rewarding day out.

 

More Than Paths

It’s easy to think of this project as simply laying new paths. In reality, it is about creating opportunities. It is about helping more children explore history with their schools, making family visits easier with pushchairs, enabling visitors who use wheelchairs or mobility scooters to experience more of the Museum than ever before, ensuring older visitors can continue enjoying the Museum they love.

Most of all, it is about making sure that the stories held within these rescued buildings can be shared with everyone. When visitors walk through our doors, we want them to feel that this is a place where they belong; a place where history is alive, where learning is hands-on, where the pace of life slows, and where every generation can discover something meaningful together.

These improvements bring us one step closer to that goal. 

We are incredibly grateful to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for making this project possible, and we would also like to thank our visitors, members, volunteers and staff for their patience and support while the work is carried out.

Together, we are investing not simply in new paths, but in a more inclusive future for the Weald & Downland Living Museum, one where more people than ever before can explore, learn, connect and discover the remarkable story of rural life in South East England.