Museum '˜comes alive' for military weekend event

The Military Vehicle and Home Front Weekend was held at Amberley Museum. Picture: Pete Edgeler

On Saturday and Sunday, museum volunteers turned back the clocks to the 1940’s Home Front and Wartime Britain, with dioramas and displays of life including vintage fire engines, bombed out shops, air raid shelters and a period police station.

With the beautiful weather over the weekend, Saturday was a quieter day but the exhibitors took time out to raise their tea cups to celebrate the Royal wedding.

The museum then came alive on Sunday with a nostalgic atmosphere, as well as the Home Guard patrolling the site and the RAF operations room in action throughout the day.

Amberley Museum is now preparing for a busy week planned for the May half term holiday which starts with its annual traditional crafts show over the Bank Holiday weekend.

There will also be visiting crafts exhibiting around the site as part of the craft market, including homemade products such as candles, jewellery, chocolate and cakes.

Morris Dancers will be displaying their traditional dances on the Saturday and Sunday.

Down in the wood yard Pagham Ponies will be visiting for the weekend, giving visitors the opportunity to meet some of the ponies.

On Wednesday, the museum is hosting the next in its series of Museum Explorer days with ‘let’s explore the stationary engines’ – a day of activities around the museum, exploring the history and displays of stationary engines at the Museum.

This year the museum is celebrating its 40th season, and is hosting more than 50 events from children’s activity days to classic vehicle shows.

The museum will be open from the March 7 to October 28. For more information on events, or education programme, please visit www.amberleymuseum.co.uk for full details.