Bibliography - Dr. Danae Tankard
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Hangleton Cottage and its medieval village, by Danae Tankard, published 2006 (Weald & Downland Museum)

Poplar Cottage - a wasteland cottage from Washington, West Sussex, by Danae Tankard, published 2007 (Weald & Downland Museum)

Pendean - a yeoman's house from West Lavington, West Sussex , by Danae Tankard, published 2008 (Weald & Downland Museum)

Graffham and Woolavington potters, tile-makers and brickmakers, c.1590-1740, by Danae Tankard, published 2008 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 146, article, pp.175-188) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15997] & The Keep [LIB/500364] & S.A.S. library   View Online

The medieval and early modern pottery industry of the Graffham area has been discussed in articles published in Sussex Archaeological Collections by Anthony Streeten (1980) and by Fred Aldsworth and Alec Down (1990). These focused primarily on the archaeology of the industry, although Aldsworth also surveyed some of the documentary sources. Brick and tile-making in the Graffham area has received less attention. A more extensive examination of documentary sources, including property deeds, manorial records, wills and probate inventories, provides new information about the potters, brick and tile-makers and enables the archaeological evidence to be placed in a stronger historic context.

Tindall's cottage - a husbandman's cottage from Ticehurst, East Sussex, by Danae Tankard, published 2009 (Weald & Downland Museum)

The Weald And Downland Open Air Museum 1970 To 2010, by Danae Tankard, published November 2010 in The Local Historian (vol. 40, no. 4, article, pp.281-291)   View Online

The Weald and Downland open Air Museum, at West Dean near Chichester, is one of the most important, extensive and highly-regarded such establishments in Britain. It now houses over fifty historic buildings, ranging from farmhouses and cottages, through barns and outbuildings, to workshops, a market hall and a watermill. The large and attractive site has been used to skilful effect to provide a setting for buildings (dating from the medieval period to the late nineteenth century brought from all over South East England, The buildings themselves have all been threatened with demolition and destruction, often because they stood in the way of redevelopment schemes, reservoirs and other projects. The aim, however, was not only to reconstruct and conserve the buildings, but also to interpret and place them in historical, social and architectural context in order to give a uniquely large and innovative educational resource, as well as an enjoyable place for the visitor to experience. In this article Dr Danae Tankard, the social historian based at the Museum, discusses its origins and evolution during the forty years since its foundation, explaining the philosophy behind its development and the practical issues and challenges which have been faced. She emphasises the continuities in approach, while also pointing to the way the application of policies and practical questions have changed and adapted in the light of experience.

The regulation of cottage building in seventeenth-century Sussex, by Danae Tankard, published 2011 in Agricultural History Review (vol. 59, no. 1, article, pp.18-35)   Download PDF

In 1589 a statute was passed entitled 'An act against erecting and maintaining cottages' which sought to regulate cottage building and the multiple occupation of cottages. This article examines the context of the act's passage and its relationship to other legislation of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. It then offers a detailed exploration of the way the act's cottage clauses were enforced in seventeenth-century Sussex. It also considers the legal status of cottages that were 'continued' and looks at evidence for methods of cottage construction and the range of cottage types.

A Pair of Grass-Green Woollen Stockings': The Clothing of the Rural Poor in Seventeenth-Century Sussex, by Danae Tankard, published 2012 in Textile History (vol. 43, article, pp.5-22)   View Online

This article examines the clothing of the rural poor in seventeenth-century Sussex, considering what men and women wore, what their clothing was made of and where they got it from, drawing on a broad range of documentary sources including legal depositions, probate material and overseers' accounts. As would be expected, the clothing of this social group was primarily functional, reflecting limited budgets and arduous working lives. But we can see in the choice of fabric colour, trimmings and accessories that men and women were concerned about their appearance and could achieve a measure of social display, at least in their 'holiday' clothes. The ways in which the poor acquired their clothes were complex, involving them in overlapping spheres of production and distribution, which included home production and shop-bought ready-to-wear, all accommodated within a range of economic survival strategies.

Houses of the Weald and Downland: People and Houses of South-East England c. 1300-1900, by Danae Tankard, published 30 April 2012 (224 pp., Carnegie Publishing Ltd., ISBN-10: 1859362001 & ISBN-13: 9781859362006) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/501551] & West Sussex Libraries

For many Sussex Archaeological Society members the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum (WDOAM), opened in 1970, has been a fact of life for many years, and this book comes as a refreshing reminder of the value of that collection and the enormous contribution it is making not only to architectural history but also to social, cultural and economic histories of the South East. The text is based on work undertaken by Danae Tankard as an associate on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership 2005-2008 between the University of Reading and WDOAM. The aim was to research and write the economic and social histories behind ten of the Museum's buildings, with the question to be asked 'what was life like for the people who lived in these houses?' In line with the WDOAM philosophy, none of the occupants were grand, and indeed the book reminds us also of the great service performed by the Museum in the shedding of more light on the lives of those who were on the margins of the poor and more 'middling sort', as well as the more prosperous yeoman households.
The book, well produced by Carnegie Publishing, presents material on eight of the houses (Walderton and the Beeding Toll House are omitted because the findings were too fragmentary), and includes one, Tindall's Cottage, which - at the time of writing this review - is due to be opened to the public for the first time on 'Sussex Day' 16 June 2013. The eight houses included are presented in approximately chronological sequence: the Hangleton medieval peasant house; late 14th-century Boarhunt (from the northern slope of Portsdown, Hampshire); the iconic late-medieval Bayleaf (from Chiddingstone, Kent); the earlymodern Pendean (West Lavington) and Poplar Cottage (Washington); the early 18th-century Tindall's Cottage (Ticehurst); the 19thcentury estate building, Gonville Cottage (Singleton) which is actually off site, and Whittaker's railway cottage of the 1860s (from Ashtead, Surrey).
. . .
Danae Tankard writes in her conclusion that she was impressed with the 'sheer tenacity' with which many people in Kent, Surrey and Sussex survived at all! We should be grateful to her for her well-researched but always readable insight into the lives of our ancestors. There are few quibbles: strangely she does not tell us where the Weald and Downland Museum actually is! It's easy enough, of course, to find that out for ourselves. We don't know why William Goldfinch's probate inventory was shown in the chapter on Bayleaf (pp.64-5) - there seems to be nothing in the text relating to him. One omission is perhaps any reference to the work of Jayne Kirk on the Wealden carpenter (SAC 2004; DPhil Thesis University of Sussex 2002) in the passage on carpenters in connection with Bayleaf.
This book is surely a model for the Sussex Archaeological Society, whose more unfocussed collection of buildings would benefit from similar treatment so that we could present the architectural history but also repopulate our buildings and contextualise them within Sussex society and economy.

Giles Moore's Clothes: The Clothing of a Sussex Rector,1656-1679, by Danae Tankard, published 2015 in Costume (vol. 49, article, pp.32-54)   View Online

This article uses the household account book of Giles Moore, rector of Horsted Keynes in Sussex from 1656 to 1679, to explore clothing production, supply and consumption in rural England in the second half of the seventeenth century. Moore's detailed record-keeping provides an insight into the supply and acquisition of textiles and clothing, as well as the clothing choices of a well-to-do country parson. A careful analysis of this underused source reveals Moore's attitudes to shopping and clothing through his selection of shops, trade and craftsmen, his concerns about excessive prices, and his cloth, clothing and accessory choices. The article examines the range of shopping opportunities that were available to Moore and which ones he made use of, arguing that he exercised a high degree of consumer choice, made possible by a well-developed shopping culture. As well as the costs of his own clothing, Moore's book records expenditure on that of his teenage niece, Martha Mayhew. In contrast to Moore's shopping choices, we can see that Martha's were considerably more circumscribed. This is consistent with recent studies of seventeenth-century consumption which have identified men rather than women as primary shoppers.

?They tell me they were in fashion last year?: Samuel and Elizabeth Jeake and clothing fashions in late seventeenth-century London and Rye, by Danae Tankard, published 2016 in Costume (50(1), article, pp.20-41)

Late 16th-century domestic wall painting: an example from Fittleworth, West Sussex, by Danae Tankard, published 2016 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 154, article, pp.195-208) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 18939] & The Keep [LIB/509465] & S.A.S. library