A sad farewell

I read, with dismay, that the local Hotham Park Heritage Trust has decided to disband due to lack of volunteers.

It’s the same with all these wonderful groups, you have the same six people doing everything!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the good people from the trust for all their hard work. The annual Heritage Day in the Park was absolutely brilliant. It was great to see so many local people and their families turn out every year. Clearly, it was well organised and lovely to see children running around enjoying themselves.

When we finally get to grips with this virus wouldn’t it be great if Arun Council could continue this annual event?

Together with the hard work of the gardeners and the trust the park is looking good. The beautiful Alice in Wonderland statues have given so many people huge pleasure and the trust must also be thanked for having the foresight to install them.

I’m sorry you had to disband and I feel sure many people in Bognor will say the same. Sadly, not enough of us felt able to volunteer, but you have left behind you a long and memorable legacy. Thank you.

JACQUELINE CLARKE Hawthorn Road Bognor Regis

Peter Lansley mourns the renaming of what until fairly recently has been fondly known as the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum (Letters, 15 October). How right he is.

I write as the sole survivor of the original seven trustees who founded the museum in the 1960s. I recall a trustees’ meeting in January 1969 held at the Royal

Pavilion immediately prior to instructing a Brighton solicitor to draw up the original trust deed by which the museum was legally founded. We needed a name.

Led by the museum’s founder, Roy Armstrong, we debated long and hard, even to the extent of wondering if ‘museum’ would detract from its appeal. Fortunately common sense prevailed and a ‘museum’ it was always to be.

But as to the ‘open air’ element, this was inspired by similar museums in Scandinavia, led by Skansen in Sweden, the first open air museum in the world, opened in 1891. Roy travelled widely to see these museums. Inspired by their success, he saw ‘his’ museum at Singleton firmly rooted in these northern European pioneering ‘open air museums’ as they soon became known.

The significance of their descriptive name is explored in a seminal study

by Sten Rentzhog: Open

Air Museums: the history and future of a visionary idea (2007, published in cooperation with The Association of European

Open Air Museums). Several paragraphs are devoted to Roy’s vision, referring to Singleton’s very special ‘idyllic landscape’ reinforcing its ‘open air’ quality.

The recent change in name – calling it the Weald and Downland Living Museum – breaks faith with Roy’s original concept and the wishes of the founding trustees.

There is another issue to consider, and it’s this. The museum cannot guarantee

throughout all seasons of the year to have many, if any, live exhibits such as demonstrations, fires in the buildings and all sorts of activities that bring the buildings to life. I’ve been on certain days when, as wonderful as a crisp winter day might be on the site, many or even most of the buildings are dead, with no life at all.

I’ve questioned visitors on their impressions, often to be told that they have felt misled by the element ‘living’ in the title, although I have to say that the working watermill is an exception to this.

I’m sure that Roy Armstrong and the other five original trustees would be delighted to see all the progress made at the museum in recent years. They would have been even more delighted – as I would – if our original name was readopted.

KIM LESLIE Sea Drive Felpham