CELEBRATE THE SIGHTS, SOUNDS AND SMELLS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE THIS AUTUMN

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 8 & 9 October. The Autumn Countryside Show is a delightful event held on the Museum’s site at Singleton, near Chichester, West Sussex, in the heart of the South Downs National Park. As well as heavy horses and vintage tractors ploughing, there will be steam-powered threshing, a Horticultural Show, and a variety of rural craft demonstrations and displays.

At this special time of year, the Museum’s beautiful 45 acre downland site is the ideal location for this annual event which showcases and celebrates many traditional countryside activities. The working plough horses are always a favourite with visitors of all ages, with the Museum's own Shires among the teams of draught horses that will be at work. About 25 vintage tractors will also be busy preparing the ground after the harvest, and there will be a display of tractors and farm implements.

The weekend’s celebrations will also include a Fun Dog Show, Gun Dog display, working donkeys, a falconry display, a chance for visitors to enjoy a horse-drawn wagon ride around some of the most beautiful areas on the Museum’s site, and an opportunity to watch a variety of traditional rural craft demonstrations. The many crafts being showcased include hurdle making, spar making, pole lathe and wood turning, coppicing and other traditional woodland crafts.

Following the success of the Horticultural Show at the Museum’s Ruby Anniversary Celebration last year, there will be a Horticultural Show at this year’s event. The many entry classes will have a harvest theme and keen growers, budding enthusiasts, beginners and children as well as clubs and societies are all welcome to take part. More…

There is also a scarecrow making class for creative types! Entry to the competition is free and forms are available from the Museum shop or website, the closing date is 20 September.

The National Society of Master Thatchers will once again be holding hurdle and spar making competitions, as well as running thatching demonstrations, and a series of short presentations on various aspects of owning and maintaining a thatched property. The Sussex Engine and Associated Machinery Society will be attending with a collection stationary agricultural based engines on display over the weekend, and there will be a chance to browse and buy at the many trade stands featuring a variety of countryside items.

The Museum is England’s leading museum of historic rural 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: in the days before the combine harvester, the ‘threshing train’ was a common sight working the farms and travelling the lanes during the autumn and winter months. It usually comprised a steam engine, threshing drum, elevator and living van used by the engine driver and his mate. Over the weekend the Museum’s crop of wheat will be threshed using an old threshing drum and a steam engine.

The Museum is open for the Autumn Countryside Show on Saturday 8 & Sunday 9 October, from 10.30am - 5pm. Admission prices are adults £9.50, over 60’s £8.50, children £5, family ticket £26. The Museum is open daily until 23 December with opening hours 10.30 – 6pm during British Summer Time, and until 4pm during the rest of the year.

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 schools programme, and an adult learning 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.

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