The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum

Yesterday I forgot to mention that we made pancakes for breakfast. It was a triumphant moment because in Sainsbury's Kate and Will had been unable to find baking powder, coming home with only baking soda. I tinkered with the recipe, adding some yoghurt to provide acidity for the baking soda to react with and the results were very good. We may have to make "yoghurt pancakes" at home.

Repeated pancakes again this morning, and then set out in our trusty car ("ZedDog, the Sled Dog", named for his licence plate, ZDG). We were bound for Singleton. This is a village north of Chichester where there is a highly-acclaimed living history centre of old buildings and practices: The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. (The Weald is the high, sandstone part of north Sussex; the Downland is the chalk hills that run through the south part of the county.)

It was raining, and Chichester is about 30 miles to the west, so we expected it to take some time. But after we passed Lewes the A27 became a four-lane divided highway, and we fairly whizzed along. Driving gets easier and easier: I think I may have got into 6th gear today. Today's excitement was when a car was merging into the highway from the left (picture that: coming in on an on-ramp from the left), he and I both slowed to almost a dead stop, unable to figure out who had right-of-way. I think I did, and confused him by not asserting it. In North American the guiding principle in the highway merge is that the incoming traffic does not have right-of-way, but isn't supposed to have to stop either. You're supposed to negotiate something with them to get them on without inconveniencing yourself too much. Here, the principle seems to be that the incoming traffic has no rights and you can ignore it. That's a little hard for me.

Drive past Arundel Castle, which looked stunning, and we wished we could stop. Noticed that most every lay-by has a food truck parked in it: how civilized! Also we got lost in Chichester, which is nothing to be embarrassed about. Kate was brilliant and got us back on the right route, the A286 north.

It was nice to get out of the car after 90 minutes, into the forest-and-field world of the museum. Right off we found out that there was a scavenger hunt going on. Will was given a little bag and a list of ten things he had to find: something blue, something shiny, something manmade, an interesting leaf, a bit of litter, a piece of chalk, a flower, a feather, a piece of flint, something prickly. Will loved this! As we wandered in and out of Tudor buildings he was reminding us to look for this or that, and in short order he had it all.

Meanwhile, we also found out it was Half Term, which is a week off from school here, so almost every building had some sort of special craft activity going on in it. Galen in turn made a walnut-shell boat, some blackletter stitching, a candle, a brass rubbing, and a bit of rag rug. Half term did not mean the place was crowded though.

We explored along paths through the buildings, which are set in small groups, with trees between them. Some parts of the area are worked as a farm would have been in Tudor times. We saw many half-timber buildings that were built in the fifteenth century (note the blackened walls from the open fire) and then improved in the seventeenth century (invention of the chimney). Lots of roof tiles hung with wooden pegs (which Will and Galen got to practice doing), lots of mortise and tenon joints with pegs. There are animal enclosures for sheep and donkeys, and interpretive signs that explain some of what's going on. Still better are the people working there, who will take the time to explain to you what they're doing. One lady had us washing wooden dishes fifteenth-century style, and we also scrubbed her table with salt to scour it.

It was still raining lightly. Some of the museum people remarked on our keen raingear. It's just, well, raingear. But looking around us we realized that no one else really had serous raingear on. Then we realized that to the English this wasn't even probably proper rain. They were wearing, like, windbreakers.

Ate our picnic lunch beside the duck pond which sported both very cute ducklings, and enormous carp. Which for some reason did not eat the ducklings. Saw a genuine rook perched on a roof. Kate says they have a very sassy attitude that comes from being afraid they're inferior to ravens.

Visited the waterwheel mill, where they still grind a ton of flour a day, watched the immense wooden gear wheels turning, and ate some of their biscuits. Also learned that the chalk-and-flint hills here provided just the right combination of building materials. The chalk can be baked into quicklime, and thence made into cement. So the hills give you everything you need to build the house, and then you go to the adjacent clay valleys to make pottery tiles for the roof.

Departed there around 4:00, and took back roads to avoid Chichester. (Saw a black headed gull on an overpass.) Fetched into Lewes at around 5:00, and parked on South Street for the Bag O' Books bookstore. It's a tiny bookstore on a street corner, but it was even better inside than it had looked through the window on Sunday. Bought a large pile of books. Walked up the high street to a cash machine--Lewes felt different from Sunday: quiet in the rain, but with more eateries than I had noticed the first time. Food is everywhere here. Got fish and chips at South Street Fish Bar; noticed that on their menu was "saveloy," so asked what that was. It turned out to be a bright red hot-dog sort of thing. Hmm. Passed on that. Anybody know if these are good to eat? I may have to try one; some things in life you just can't learn about by reading.

Took it all home--it seems such a quick drive now down to Newhaven. There's a sign on the route that tells you that you're entering "Tarring Nevile," and we always enjoy seeing that.