Bibliography - Weald and Dowland Open Air Museum, Singleton, West Sussex
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Weald and Downland Open Air Museum - guidebook, published c.1969 (pamphlet) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 10196]

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum guide , published 1970 (32 pp., Weald & Downland Open Air Museum) accessible at: R.I.B.A. Library

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. Handbook for School Teachers, by Kim C. Leslie, published 1972 (pamphlet, Weald & Downland Open Air Museum) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 5954] & West Sussex Libraries

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Singleton, edited by J. R. Armstrong and John Lowe, published 1973 (pamphlet, 33 pp., Chichester: Phillimore & Co. Ltd.) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 2853][Lib 12304][Lib 12664] & R.I.B.A. Library

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum: A Guide Book for Children, by Kim C. Leslie, published 1973 (pamphlet, Phillimore) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 5034][Lib 12665] & West Sussex Libraries

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum - guidebook, edited by J R Armstrong, published 1974 (pamphlet) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 5685]

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum - guidebook, edited by J R Armstrong, published 1976 (pamphlet, Worthing: Flexiprint, ISBN-10: 0905259009 & ISBN-13: 9780905259000) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15560] & West Sussex Libraries

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum: A Guide Book for Children, by Kim C. Leslie, published 1976 (3rd edition, 23 pp., The Museum, ISBN-10: 0905259025 & ISBN-13: 9780905259024) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 6226] & British Library & West Sussex Libraries

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Singleton, by J. R. Armstrong, R. Harris and edited by C. S. H. Zeunder, published 1977 (pamphlet, 48 pp., Weald and Downland Museum, ISBN-10: 0905259041 & ISBN-13: 9780905259048) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15410] & British Library & R.I.B.A. Library & West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries

A thousand years of timber frame: the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, by J. N. P. Watson, published 27 October 1977 in Country Life (vol. 162 no. 4191, article, pp.1196-1198)

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum Guidebook, edited by R. Harris, published December 1982 (pamphlet, Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, ISBN-10: 0905259076 & ISBN-13: 9780905259079) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 12422][Lib 8522] & West Sussex Libraries

The Charcoal Burners [Weald and Downland Museum], by Richard Pailthorpe, published 1985 (article) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 9251]

Owners and Tenants of Medieval and 17th Century House from Walderton, West Sussex re-erected at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum at Singleton, West Sussex, by P. G. Lowe, published March 1985 in Sussex Family Historian (vol. 6 no. 5, article, p.182) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 9788] & The Keep [LIB/501258] & CD SFH40 from S.F.H.G.

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum Guidebook, edited by R. Harris, published 1987 (57 pp., Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, ISBN-10: 0905259149 & ISBN-13: 9780905259147) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum 1965-1970: The Founding Years, by Kim C. Leslie, published 1990 (pamphlet, 24 pp., published by the author, ISBN-10: 0905259173 & ISBN-13: 9780905259178) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 10789] & West Sussex Libraries

Weald and Downland Open Air Museum Guidebook, edited by R. Harris, published 1 January 1992 (64 pp., Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, ISBN-10: 0905259203 & ISBN-13: 9780905259208) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries

Bending the rules Raising a Sussex museum's huge and fragile timber gridshell roof, published 18 May 2001 in Building (article, pp.68-77) accessible at: British Library

Conservation piece: How the UK's first timbergridshell was lowered into place at a Sussex museum, published 13 October 2001 in Building (article, pp.50-52) accessible at: British Library

Ancient and Modern: How The Downland Gridshell, an elaborate Timber Grid Dish Construction in the Weald and Downland Open-Air Museum in Sussex, was constructed using Bentley's STAAD.Pro, published 2007 in CAD user (vol. 20, no. 9, article, pp.26-28) accessible at: British Library

The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum : the early years, by John Warren, published c.2010 (viii + 33 pp., Bainbridge: Country Press) accessible at: British Library

Building History: Weald & Downland Open Air Museum 1970-2010 the First 40 Years, by Richard Harris, Kim C. Leslie, Carol Brinson and edited by Diana Zeuner, published 10 November 2010 (200 pp., Weald & Downland Open Air Museum, ISBN-10: 0905259300 & ISBN-13: 9780905259307) accessible at: British Library & West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries

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.

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.