Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre

Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre

Motor Engineers, Amberley working museum.
Location	Amberley, West Sussex, England
Coordinates	50°53′53″N 0°32′22″W / 50.8980°N 0.5395°WCoordinates: 50°53′53″N 0°32′22″W / 50.8980°N 0.5395°W
Type	Industrial heritage
Website	Website

Leyland N Bus

Early Leyland bus on the road at Amberley

Wheelwright's Shop

Locomotive Polar Bear on the narrow gauge railway

Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre is a museum at Amberley, near Arundel in West Sussex, England.

The museum was founded in 1979 by the Southern Industrial History Centre Trust and has previously been known as the Amberley Working Museum, Amberley Chalk Pits Museum or plain Amberley Museum.

The museum is a registered charity^[1] and has the support of an active Friends organisation.

Location

It is a 36-acre (146,000 m²) open-air museum,^[2] next to Amberley railway station, dedicated to the industrial heritage of South East England and with a special interest in aspects of the history of communications and transport.^[3]

The museum is sited in a former chalk quarry ^[4] where the chalk was converted into lime for use in mortar and cement,^[5] and remaining on site are several kilns, including a De Witt set, and associated buildings including offices, bagging shed and locomotive shed.

Also to be seen is the quarry tunnel (which appeared as Mainstrike Mine in the James Bond film A View to a Kill). Additional buildings have been relocated or replicated on the site and exhibition halls added. The natural history and geology of the site can be seen from a nature trail.

Exhibits and collections

• BT Connected Earth telecommunications exhibition^[6]
• EDF Energy Electricity Hall^[7]
• Vintage Wireless and Communications exhibition and Amateur radio station
• Amberley Museum Railway: a 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge railway and railway exhibition hall devoted to British industrial narrow gauge railways.^[8][9] There are 45 locomotives, with 8 being steam powered, 29 internal combustion and 4 battery electric, and around 80 items of rolling stock, chiefly goods wagons,^[10][11][12] based largely on the collection of the former Brockham Museum (relocated here in 1982).^[13] There is special interest in railway material from the Dorking Greystone Lime Company^[14] and also from the Groudle Glen Railway in the Isle of Man^[15] Of the 8 steam locos, only one is currently operational, but a further three are undergoing overhauls of one form or another.
• Southdown Bus garage, a reconstructed 1920s depot housing working buses chiefly from the local operator Southdown Motor Services^[16][17][18] based on the collection of the Southdown Omnibus Trust^[19]
• Wheelwright's Shop, from Horsham
• Machine Shop^[20]
• Ironmonger's shop
• Timber yard and Steam crane
• Village Garage, a reconstructed 1930s automobile repair shop
• Paviors Hall of Road Making, located in a 19th-century iron-framed industrial building relocated from Horsham
• Cycle Exhibition
• Rural telephone exchange, incorporating 1940s equipment from Coolham
• Arundel Gin Building, housing a metal foundry
• Brickyard drying shed, late 19th century, from Petersfield, Hampshire
• Concrete Exhibition
• Fairmile Café, a 1930s roadside building partly housing the Ted Page collection of domestic and agricultural artefacts
• Dover Cottage Pump House, from Arundel, and water pumping display
• Stationary engine shed, and Municipal engine house from Littlehampton
• Fire Station, reproduction of a typical 1950s building completed in 2008 and now housing several roadworthy historic fire engines and an impressive collection of displays and exhibits primarily relating to the history of fire-fighting in Sussex.
• Toll bridge hut, from Littlehampton swing bridge
• Printing Shop
• Brewery and Laundry (the latter with Victorian equipment from Warnham)
• Cobbler's shop, with equipment from Bognor Regis
• Hall of Tools, with associated demonstrations by the Tools and Trades History Society

Crafts demonstrated on site include woodturning, broom-making, walking stick-making, caning (furniture) and the work of the blacksmith and the stained glass maker. Special events are held regularly.

Southdown Bus collection

On open days the Southdown Bus collection operates bus rides throughout the day. The collection of vehicles is listed below.

Operational buses

• 1914 Worthing Motor Services/Southdown Tilling Stevens open-top 41-seater IB 552. (Restricted use because the bus is fragile)
• 1922 Southdown Leyland N Type open-top 51-seater CD 5125.
• 1927 Southdown Dennis 30 cwt single-deck UF 1517.
• 1928 Sunderland Corporation Leyland Lion LT1 single-deck BR 7132 (Privately Owned).
• 1930 Southdown Tilling Stevens B10 A2 single-deck 31-seater UF 6805.
• 1931 Southdown Leyland Titan TD1 double-deck 50-seater UF 6473.
• 1931 Southdown Leyland Titan TD1 double-deck 50-seater UF 7428.
• 1937 Southdown Leyland Cub single-deck 24-seater ECD 524.
• Replica 1938 Shelvoke and Drewry Tramocar BP9822 single-deck. (Small bus generally used at quiet times)

Buses undergoing repair or restoration

• 1923 Southdown Tilling Stevens single-deck CD 4867. (Chassis only, planned to be fitted with a raked charabanc-type body)

Amberley Narrow Gauge & Industrial Railway Collection

See also

• Arundel Museum and Heritage Centre
• List of British railway museums
• British narrow gauge railways

References

1. Amberley Chalk Pits Museum, Registered Charity no. 278722 at the Charity Commission
2. Amberley Working Museum (2005). Amberley Working Museum.
3. Dean, Ian (Summer 1981). "Chalk Pits Museum". Yesteryear Transport (9): 12–15.
4. Owned by the Pepper Family for 30 years Times 24/2/04 Obituary of Ginny Fiennes (née Pepper)
5. Aldsworth, Fred (1979). Limeburning and the Amberley Chalkpits. Chichester: West Sussex County Council. ISBN 0-900800-33-X.
6. "Connected Earth". Archived from the original on 10 May 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
7. Gordon, Bob (1981). One Hundred Years of Electricity Supply 1881-1981. Hove: Seeboard.
8. Amberley Chalk Pits Museum (1984). Industrial Railways of the South-East. Midhurst: Middleton Press. ISBN 0-906520-09-6.
9. Dean, Ian (1984). Industrial Narrow Gauge Railways. Princes Risborough: Shire Publications. ISBN 0-85263-752-7.
10. Cork, Gerry (2001). The Amberley Museum Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railway Collection. Amberley Museum.
11. "Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railway Collection". Retrieved 2007-05-13.
12. Smithers, Mark (September 1995). "The Railway Treasures of Amberley". Railway World 57 (664): 33–5.
13. Smith, D.H. (April 1983). "Brockham Metamorphosis — at the Chalk Pits Museum". Narrow Gauge (101): 1–6.
14. Townsend, J.L. (1980). Townsend Hook and the Railways of the Dorking Greystone Lime Co. Ltd. Betchworth: Brockham Museum. ISBN 0-9504720-4-2.
15. Smith, David H. (1989). The Groudle Glen Railway. Brighton: Plateway Press. ISBN 1-871980-00-X.
16. Southdown Omnibus Trust (c. 2004). The Amberley Collection.
17. "Southdown Bus Garage Project". Archived from the original on 28 May 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
18. Lamb, Philip (July 2003). "Before Mary Was Queen". Bus & Coach Preservation 5 (8): 6–11.
19. "Crash Gearbox: the website of the Southdown Omnibus Trust". Archived from the original on 16 April 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-13.
20. Fermer, Hugh (1995). Machine Tools: a history 1540-1986. Amberley Museum. ISBN 0-9519329-1-8.

External links

• Museum website
• Photographs and Description
• Amberley Narrow Gauge Railway
• Museum photo gallery, mostly buses and trains