Into the Country Display

This small push cart originally came from Brenchley, Kent, and was made by a wheelwright in the hop growing district of South East England in the mid nineteenth century.

Such push carts, known as ‘Brindley Hop Wagons’, were used by women who worked in the hop fields: they were made deep so that the carts could be filled with hops, with children sitting on top of the load. At the time of acquisition in 1956, a 70 year old wheelwright in Wadhurst commented that he remembered his father making and repairing them, but their use was already declining when he was a child.

This enamel sign dates from the 1930s. Southern Railway bought shares in the Wilts & Dorset Bus Company  in 1931. With the nationalisation of the railways in 1948, the Wilts & Dorset became state owned. It ran buses in Wiltshire, Dorset and Hampshire, especially in the Andover, Amerbury, Pewsey and Salisbury areas.

This sign dates from the 1960s when the public were given the ‘right to roam’ in Forestry Commission forests. The Forestry Commission was created by the Forestry Act of September 1919, to rebuild and maintain a strategic timer reserve.

This is an example of a ‘boneshaker’ or ‘velocipede’, a very early bicycle designed in 1865. It consists of a wooden frame mounted on two wooden iron-tyred wheels, with a seat, handle and brake on the rear wheel. It was given to the donor by Dame F. H. L. Clayton-East of Hall Place in Hurley, Berkshire, where it was used to cycle around Hall Place Park. Bicycles such as these were not allowed on the road at that time.