Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre
Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre
![]() Motor Engineers, Amberley working museum. | |
Location | Amberley, West Sussex, England |
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Coordinates | 50°53′53″N 0°32′22″W [25] |
Type | Industrial heritage |
Website | www.amberleymuseum.co.uk [26] |
Amberley Museum is an open-air industrial heritage museum at Amberley, near Arundel in West Sussex, England.
The museum was founded in 1978 by the Southern Industrial History Centre Trust and has previously been known as the Amberley Working Museum, Amberley Chalk Pits Museum and Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre.
The museum is a registered charity[1] and has the support of an active Friends organisation.
![]() Motor Engineers, Amberley working museum. | |
Location | Amberley, West Sussex, England |
---|---|
Coordinates | 50°53′53″N 0°32′22″W [25] |
Type | Industrial heritage |
Website | www.amberleymuseum.co.uk [26] |
Location
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

Wheelwright's Shop

Electricity Pavilion

Sawing Logs at the timber yard
The site hosts a range and exhibitions and collections not all of which are opened every day.
Connected Earth telecommunications exhibition[6]
Electricity Hall[7]
Machine Shop[8]
Wheelwright's Shop, from Horsham
Vintage Wireless and Communications exhibition and Amateur radio station
Ironmonger's shop
Timber yard and Steam crane
Village Garage, a reconstructed 1930s automobile repair shop
Paviors Hall of Road Making, located in a 19th-century iron-framed industrial building relocated from Horsham
Cycle Exhibition
Rural telephone exchange, incorporating 1940s equipment from Coolham
Arundel Gin Building, housing a plumbing display
Brickyard drying shed, late 19th century, from Petersfield, Hampshire
Fairmile Café, a 1930s roadside.
Dover Cottage Pump House, from Arundel, and water pumping display
Stationary engine shed, and Municipal engine house from Littlehampton
Fire 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 bridge
Working Printing Shop
Cobbler's shop, with equipment from Bognor Regis
Hall of Tools, with associated demonstrations by the Tools and Trades History Society
Crafts
Crafts demonstrated on site include woodturning, broom-making, walking stick-making and the work of the blacksmith and potters. Special events are held regularly.
Rail and bus collections
Amberley Narrow Gauge & Industrial Railway Collection

Narrow gauge railway
The Amberley Museum Railway is a 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge railway and railway exhibition hall devoted to British industrial narrow gauge railways.[9][10] 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,[11][12][13] based largely on the collection of the former Brockham Museum (relocated here in 1982).[14] There is special interest in railway material from the Dorking Greystone Lime Company[15] and also from the Groudle Glen Railway in the Isle of Man.[16] Of the 8 steam locos, two are currently operational.
Southdown Bus collection

Southdown Leyland Cub No. 524 passes the Tool and Trades History Society Building
On open days the Southdown Bus collection operates bus rides throughout the day. The collection of vehicles is listed below.
- Operational buses
1914 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 Worthing Tramocar BP9822 single-deck. (Small bus generally used at quiet times)
- Buses undergoing repair or restoration
1923 Southdown Tilling Stevens single-deck CD 4867. (Chassis only, planned to be fitted with a raked charabanc-type body)
See also
Arundel Museum and Heritage Centre
List of British railway museums
British narrow gauge railways