Wargrave Local History Society

IN July, members of Wargrave Local History Society made a visit to the Rural Life Museum at Tilford (just south of Farnham) in Surrey.

It was one of the days when the weather was warm, sunny and dry but not too hot and the shelter provided by the trees in this rural setting made it a most enjoyable occasion.

The idea to create a museum came to Henry and Madge Jackson when they realised that once familiar objects that were part of everyday country life were going out of use and being thrown away.

They started to collect examples from across the area, and in 1973 opened what was then called the Old Kiln Museum to visitors.

In due course, a charitable trust was set up to provide for the museum’s future and, when Henry died in 2004, he bequeathed all of the property and his collection to the trust.

As might be expected, there are many farming implements and tools associated with the crafts and trades to be found in a rural community but the collection also includes buildings and other large items that might be found in a rural landscape.

The buildings are used to display some of the smaller items that might have been found in them in time past, as well as being exhibits themselves.

The first of the buildings to be re-sited at the museum was a “pre-fab”. These were pre-fabricated buildings (hence the name) that were erected just after the Second World War to help solve a housing crisis.

It is set with a vegetable garden, typical of the period, including a garden shed that had been created from an old air-raid shelter.

Inside, it has been furnished as it would have been in the late Forties. Relating to the same era is a model of the Tweedsmuir Camp hut occupied by a Polish family living on the military site at Thursley, near Hindhead.

Other items that provided shelter of various kinds for people include an Anderson (air-raid) shelter, a gypsy caravan, a shepherd’s hut and a living van that could be towed by a traction engine for use as temporary accommodation at a work site, while also on wheels is an early caravan that could be towed behind a car.

It had been built of plywood on a wooden frame in 1922 by the Angela Caravan Company — a firm connected to an earlier builder of horse-drawn carts and touring caravans. It is about 10ft long and has electric lighting, although the oven is heated by paraffin, which is also the source of energy for the rear lamp.

Buildings that were a feature of a rural life, such as a nonconformist chapel containing a harmonium to accompany the singing at services from the village of Eashing, near Godalming, the village hall that formerly stood at Lindford in east Hampshire, or a cricket pavilion originally used in Godalming have all been rebuilt within the museum grounds. Much closer to the museum site is the village of Bourne, from which came a schoolroom that provided education for local children.

The corrugated iron-clad timber-framed building had been constructed in 1902. The interior includes not only the high teacher’s desk at the front and traditional pupils’ desks, with ink-wells but also a long laboratory bench, complete with a Bunsen burner and sinks for science classes.

Working life in the countryside of course included farming, and there is not only a granary building — raised on stone supports to keep vermin away from the grain — but also examples of the machinery used to convert the grain into flour.

The displays include workshops for many of the other crafts needed, such as a cobbler’s shop, carpenter’s shop, a wheelwright and a blacksmith’s — the latter being in the area known as Henry’s Yard — in the original part of the museum complex, named after its founder, with a display about cider making opposite.

Nearby is a typical rural wood yard equipped with period machinery.

Elsewhere, there are farm implements, of all shapes and sizes, including some of the large size lawn-mowers used for cricket squares or country mansion gardens, built by Dennis Bros at Guildford.

In the days before mechanised transport became commonplace, transport of goods was by horse-drawn wagons and carts and there are many examples housed at the museum.

The local residents might have a pony and trap, or use a bicycle to get around, and the Deeks cycle shop — relocated from Frimley — shows how a typical small business looked.

The cycle rider’s shopping could be carried in the basket at the front, while a sloped-top desk supported the books for the shopkeeper’s records and accounts before the computer age, the drawers below containing small parts needed to service or repair the bikes — rarely pre-packaged in plastic packets then.

Another way for people to travel was by railway, and in lightly populated areas this might be a narrow gauge line, like the one that runs around three sides of the museum grounds.

The museum also houses the Dennis Collection of heritage vehicles made by Dennis Bros, including a 1932 single-deck bus and a small 1933 coach, and two fire engines — a large one from 1914 and a smaller one built in 1936.

As is now traditional for a Wargrave Local History Society visit, members enjoyed an afternoon cream tea in the cool shade of the museum grounds alongside the café.

There is much more to see than can be mentioned here. The Rural Life Museum, which is a charitable trust, is open daily until the end of September, and at weekends during the rest of the year. For more information, visit rural
-life.org.uk

For more information about the society, visit www.wargrave
history.org.uk