Weald & Downland Living Museum

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Still glorious weather today but forecast warned that it would come to an abrupt end this evening (and it did).

Making the most of the lovely sunshine we set off first to the stately home only a couple of miles from the campsite .. Stansted Park. First thing we spotted was that the house was not open until 1pm and it was a good 2 hours short of that. Second was that this is really a rather commercial enterprise with garden centre, farm shop and the first gardens we came to, taken over by a very busy restaurant, tea room. We had a walk round the gardens we could access but decided not to wait for the 1pm opening and instead got on my phone to prebook us entry to somewhere else.

An excellent decision as we've done lots of stately homes recently but where we went was a superb new experience. Weald & Downland Living Museum a few miles due north of Chichester and near Goodwood, it is sited on land at the back of and leased from West Dean gardens.

wiki says :"The principal aim at the foundation of the museum was to establish a centre that could rescue representative examples of vernacular buildings from South East England, and thereby to generate increased public awareness and interest in the built environment.".

We found it to be absolutely brilliant, a wonderful way to spend a good part of a day exploring. It has been in existence now for over 50 years and contains a representative example of many historic buildings. Fascinating and informative.
The site is also home to the Repair Shop of TV fame and sure enough tucked away in a corner we found the familiar buildings and some of the repairers we recognize from the program, hard at work in the outdoor, open sided shed.

So a really lovely day under a fantastic cornflower blue sky before we returned to the campsite, after a quick stop at a nice looking pub on the way back.

Sure enough the sky clouded over when we got back and the blue sky turned ominously black but though it rained a little and there was a bit of thunder, so far nothing like as bad as we had been expecting by the as usual over-dramatic forecasts.

Leaving here tomorrow for a visit, via ferry, to the Isle of Wight.

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Photos

210908 Emsworth (77)
Goosey Goosey tried Very hard indeed to grab Bob's lunch sandwich but not as bad as a chicken which pecked him on the leg when he wouldn't hand it over.