My Visit to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum

Last week, as well as going to Fishbourne Roman Palace, I had the pleasure of being able to visit the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum with my family. We explored several of the site's buildings. I had been there on a school trip when I was younger, mainly to see the Victorian school and other buildings dating to the Victorian era. This visit was actually to see as much of the museum as possible, regardless of era.

The site is composed of about 50 buildings from across the South of England, ranging from the 13th to the 19th centuries. This corresponds to a period ranging from the medieval to Victorian eras. All buildings have been carefully disassembled, transported from their original sites, and rebuilt in the
Open Air Museum. Restoration work has been carried out where necessary.

Later this year, an Anglo-Saxon style wooden hall is to be finished; it will be historically accurate but is not restored like the other buildings. No wooden structures survive from the Anglo-Saxon era, so this is based on archaeological records of a house from 950 AD. When I was at the site the building was under construction, but was taking form nicely; it was visibly recognisable as a Saxon building. The Gateway Project, which aims to reconstruct dismantled buildings, is also underway.

We visited several houses around the site, which were very interesting to explore, especially compared with each other. The variations in house age made it possible to witness the differences between medieval, Tudor and early modern housing After early modern housing it was possible to witness the innovations made over the ages. Some of the houses had guides who were well-educated and very helpful. Many of the houses had period-appropriate gardens as well, for example there were no potatoes in the Tudor gardens. None of the houses had modern heating, although they had either firepits or fireplaces, and none of them had obvious electricity either. Some of the houses, like Tindalls Cottage had discreet electric lights for safety. All of the buildings were furnished, some very modestly, and others more comfortably. This was based on the affluence of the inhabitants.

This is an image of one of the information booklets present in each building, which describe where the building was originally located, when it was built, and who lived in it.

La << Mort Saint-Innocent >> statue in the Louvre Museum

La << Mort Saint-Innocent >> literally translates to The "Dead Saint Innocent" in English. 

It's a French statue in the Louvre Museum located in Paris. It stands 1.2 metres tall and was originally located in the "Cimetière des Innocents", literally the "Cemetery of the Innocent" or "the Cemetery of Innocents" but this cemetery closed in 1786. Not much is known about the actual statue, who made it, or the exact date. The estimate is given as around 1530. 

The statue is very strange and immediately my caught my eye. I'd been walking through typical Roman statues, building fragments and Virgin Marys. I turned a corner and saw this amazing skeleton.

Looks to be in old French. I can't understand it but I was having trouble with the font they'd used. The French and English translations are below. 

In thinking the symbol below could be the sculptor's mark. 

L'image décharnée de la Mort se dressait au centre du cimetière des Innocents. Sur son bouclier, un quatrain rappelle :
<< Il n'est vivant tant soit plein d'art
Ne de force pour resistance
Que je ne frappe de mon dard
Pour bailler aux vers leur pitance
Priez Dieu pour les trepasses. >>
À la suppression du cimetière, en 1786, le squelette a été porté à Saint-Gervais, puis à Notre-Dame, où le bras a été refait par le sculpteur Deseine, ensuite au musée des Monuments français.

The image shows the Angel of Death and was in the centre of the Cemetery of Innocents. On his shield a verse reads:

"Only living when in art

No strength or resistance 

Who I hit with my dart 

To send them into poverty  

Pray to God for the trespassers" 

(I'm thinking trespasses is used to mean sinners, as in the Lord's Prayer.)

When the cemetery closed in  1786, this skeleton was taken to Saint-Gervais, then to Notre-Dame, where the arms were resculpted by Deseine, then the to the Museum of French Monuments. 

It was acquired by The Louvre in 1866 but this is the first time I've seen it. Admittedly I always see new things and you could walk it for days and still miss things. Not mentioning the storage. 

If you want to see this for yourself it's in he Richelieu section on the ground floor in room 13. Or was at the time of writing. 

I may or may not write about the Cemetery of Innocents later on, if you really want me to comment below. 

Sources

Link to the catalog reference from the Louvre website (in French)

Wikimedia for a better quality image

As a sidenote there was a plague in France between 1451 and 1503. Could this have inspired the sculptor?