Chiltern Open Air Museum (COAM) will celebrate traditional harvest methods at its annual event.

The museum, which recently won a Certificate of Excellence in the Tripadvisor Traveller’s Choice Awards 2024, will host the event across two days at the end of the month.

The event will take place from 10am to 5pm on both Saturday, September 28, and Sunday, September 29.

At the harvest event, visitors can experience the traditions of farming history, providing an opportunity to explore the sights, sounds, and smells of past harvests.

Working heavy horses will be on-site in traditional kit, and visitors can ride on their cart.

Horses will be there to give visitors carriage ridesHorses will be there to give visitors carriage rides (Image: Chiltern Open Air Museum)

The museum’s team of farming volunteers will demonstrate rural skills, and the sheepdogs will herd the museum’s flock of Oxford Down sheep.

Morris Dancers will add to the celebration, and a blacksmith will be working in Garston Forge.

A traditional harvest loaf will be baked in the cottage, and Henton Chapel will display harvest produce, mostly grown in the museum’s gardens.

 

Traditional baked loaf in the cottageTraditional baked loaf in the cottage (Image: Chiltern Open Air Museum)

The museum’s apple orchard, where each tree is a different heritage variety, will also be part of the event. The apples are harvested each year and made into apple juice sold in the museum shop.

A traditional apple press will be on-site, and visitors can try their hand at the process.

The museum is home to more than 30 historic buildings, each with its own story, from a reconstructed Iron Age roundhouse to a 1940s prefab from Amersham.

These buildings, saved from demolition or decay, also include a furniture factory from High Wycombe, a tin chapel Mission Room from Henton, and a Victorian forge from Garston.

The museum, set in 45 acres of Chilterns landscape, also features a working historic farm.

The farm, which has appeared in television dramas like Downton Abbey, Call the Midwife, and Midsomer Murders, preserves traditional skills and machinery, including a restored 1947 Ransomes Simms & Jeffries threshing machine.