Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre is a museum at Amberley, near Arundel in West Sussex, England.
The museum was founded in 1979 by the Southern Industrial History Centre Trust and has previously been known as the Amberley Working Museum, Amberley Chalk Pits Museum or plain Amberley Museum.
The museum is a registered charity and has the support of an active Friends organisation.
It is a 36-acre (146,000 m2) open-air museum, next to Amberley railway station, dedicated to the industrial heritage of South East England and with a special interest in aspects of the history of communications and transport.
The museum is sited in a former chalk quarry where the chalk was converted into lime for use in mortar and cement, and remaining on site are several kilns, including a De Witt set, and associated buildings including offices, bagging shed and locomotive shed.
Also to be seen is the quarry tunnel (which appeared as Mainstrike Mine in the James Bond film A View to a Kill). Additional buildings have been relocated or replicated on the site and exhibition halls added. The natural history and geology of the site can be seen from a nature trail.
Exhibits and collections
Connected Earth telecommunications exhibitionElectricity HallVintage Wireless and Communications exhibition and Amateur radio stationAmberley Museum Railway: a 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge railway and railway exhibition hall devoted to British industrial narrow gauge railways. There are 45 locomotives, with 8 being steam powered, 29 internal combustion and 4 battery electric, and around 80 items of rolling stock, chiefly goods wagons, based largely on the collection of the former Brockham Museum (relocated here in 1982). There is special interest in railway material from the Dorking Greystone Lime Company and also from the Groudle Glen Railway in the Isle of Man Of the 8 steam locos, only one is currently operational, but a further three are undergoing overhauls of one form or another.Southdown Bus garage, a reconstructed 1920s depot housing working buses chiefly from the local operator Southdown Motor Services based on the collection of the Southdown Omnibus TrustWheelwright's Shop, from HorshamMachine ShopIronmonger's shopTimber yard and Steam craneVillage Garage, a reconstructed 1930s automobile repair shopPaviors Hall of Road Making, located in a 19th-century iron-framed industrial building relocated from HorshamCycle ExhibitionRural telephone exchange, incorporating 1940s equipment from CoolhamArundel Gin Building, housing a metal foundryBrickyard drying shed, late 19th century, from Petersfield, HampshireConcrete ExhibitionFairmile Café, a 1930s roadside building partly housing the Ted Page collection of domestic and agricultural artefactsDover Cottage Pump House, from Arundel, and water pumping displayStationary engine shed, and Municipal engine house from LittlehamptonFire Station, reproduction of a typical 1950s building completed in 2008 and now housing several roadworthy historic fire engines and an impressive collection of displays and exhibits primarily relating to the history of fire-fighting in Sussex.Toll bridge hut, from Littlehampton swing bridgePrinting ShopBrewery displayCobbler's shop, with equipment from Bognor RegisHall of Tools, with associated demonstrations by the Tools and Trades History SocietyCrafts demonstrated on site include woodturning, broom-making, walking stick-making and the work of the blacksmith and potters. Special events are held regularly.
On open days the Southdown Bus collection operates bus rides throughout the day. The collection of vehicles is listed below.
Operational buses1914 Worthing Motor Services/Southdown Tilling Stevens open-top 41-seater IB 552. (Restricted use because the bus is fragile)1922 Southdown Leyland N Type open-top 51-seater CD 5125.1927 Southdown Dennis 30 cwt single-deck UF 1517.1928 Sunderland Corporation Leyland Lion LT1 single-deck BR 7132 (Privately Owned).1930 Southdown Tilling Stevens B10 A2 single-deck 31-seater UF 6805.1931 Southdown Leyland Titan TD1 double-deck 50-seater UF 6473.1931 Southdown Leyland Titan TD1 double-deck 50-seater UF 7428.1937 Southdown Leyland Cub single-deck 24-seater ECD 524.Replica 1938 Shelvoke and Drewry Tramocar BP9822 single-deck. (Small bus generally used at quiet times)Buses undergoing repair or restoration1923 Southdown Tilling Stevens single-deck CD 4867. (Chassis only, planned to be fitted with a raked charabanc-type body)
