About
Chiltern Open Air Museum is a unique heritage attraction dedicated to the rescue, preservation, and re-erection of historic buildings from across the Chilterns and surrounding regions that would otherwise have been lost to demolition or decay. Set in 45 acres of beautiful Chiltern countryside at Newland Park near Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire, the museum presents over thirty rescued buildings spanning more than five hundred years of architectural and social history, from a medieval hall to a Victorian prefabricated iron chapel, each carefully dismantled at its original site and rebuilt at the museum using traditional construction methods.
Founded in 1976 by a group of individuals alarmed by the rate at which historic buildings were being demolished across the Chilterns and the Home Counties, the museum opened to visitors in 1981 and has grown steadily to become one of the most significant open-air museums in southern England. The core mission remains the same: to rescue buildings of historical and architectural interest that face destruction and to give them a new life at the museum where they can be understood, appreciated, and enjoyed by future generations. Each building is accompanied by detailed interpretation explaining its original context, construction, use, and the story of its rescue and re-erection.
The collection of buildings represents the full range of vernacular architecture found in the Chilterns and neighbouring counties — timber-framed barns and farmhouses, brick-built agricultural buildings, a toll house, a furniture factory, a Victorian tin chapel, and various domestic buildings from cottages to grander residences. Together they document the materials, techniques, and styles of building that characterised the Chiltern region across the centuries, from the medieval use of locally sourced oak and flint through the Georgian and Victorian brick-building traditions to the innovative use of prefabricated iron and corrugated metal in the nineteenth century.
Beyond the buildings themselves, the museum presents the rural life and traditional crafts of the Chilterns through living history demonstrations, hands-on activities, and seasonal events. Craft demonstrations including blacksmithing, woodland management, and traditional building repair techniques give visitors a tangible connection with the skills and knowledge that sustained rural communities in the Chilterns for centuries. The extensive grounds include traditional orchards, woodland walks, and wildflower meadows that contribute to the museum's role as a site of ecological as well as architectural and social conservation.
The museum has been used as a filming location for period dramas and historical documentaries, its collection of authentic historic buildings providing a ready-made backdrop for productions requiring genuine period settings. The museum's educational programme serves schools across Buckinghamshire and the surrounding counties, using the buildings and collections as a primary resource for curriculum-linked learning about local history, architecture, and rural life.
Categories:
Highlights
Rescued Historic Buildings
The museum's core collection comprises over thirty historic buildings rescued from demolition or dereliction across the Chilterns and surrounding counties.
Each building was carefully recorded at its original site, dismantled timber by timber and brick by brick, transported to the museum, and re-erected using traditional construction methods and materials. The buildings span more than five centuries of architectural history and represent the full range of vernacular building types found in the region — from medieval timber-framed structures to Victorian industrial and agricultural buildings.
Together they form one of the most important collections of rescued buildings in southern England and represent decades of painstaking conservation effort by the museum's staff and volunteers.
Astleham House — Medieval Timber-Framed Hall
Among the oldest and most significant buildings in the collection is a medieval timber-framed hall house that demonstrates the construction techniques and domestic arrangements of the medieval Chiltern countryside. The building's heavy oak frame, with its substantial roof timbers and characteristic medieval plan — a central open hall flanked by service rooms and a private chamber — represents a type of domestic architecture that was once common across the Chilterns but has largely disappeared from the landscape.
The building's rescue and re-erection at the museum preserved not only its physical structure but the evidence of centuries of alteration, repair, and adaptation that it embodied.
The Victorian Iron Chapel
One of the museum's most remarkable buildings is a prefabricated iron chapel — a complete place of worship manufactured from cast iron and corrugated metal that could be assembled quickly and affordably in communities that lacked a permanent church. This type of building, sometimes called a tin tabernacle, was produced in large numbers during the Victorian period for use in rapidly growing urban areas, mission stations, and rural communities.
The museum's example is one of relatively few to survive intact, and its preservation provides valuable evidence of a type of building that played an important role in Victorian religious life but was regarded as temporary and was rarely considered worthy of conservation.
Traditional Chiltern Building Materials
The buildings in the collection showcase the distinctive building materials and construction techniques of the Chiltern region — locally sourced oak for timber framing, flint nodules gathered from the chalk for wall construction, handmade clay tiles and bricks, and the various types of render and plaster used to protect and decorate exterior walls.
The museum's interpretation explains how the geology and landscape of the Chilterns directly influenced the character of its vernacular architecture, creating a distinctive regional building tradition that was sustainable, locally sourced, and intimately connected to the landscape from which its materials were drawn.
Collections
The Historic Buildings Collection
Over thirty rescued and re-erected historic buildings spanning five centuries of Chiltern architectural history, each with detailed interpretation explaining its original context, construction, use, and rescue story.
Chiltern Rural Life
Displays within selected buildings documenting the traditional rural life of the Chiltern countryside — farming, forestry, domestic life, and the crafts and trades that sustained local communities.
Nature Trail and Heritage Landscape
A self-guided trail through the museum's 45 acres of woodland, orchards, and wildflower meadows, highlighting the relationship between the natural landscape and the built heritage of the Chilterns.
Current Exhibitions
An exhibition exploring how traditional Chiltern building techniques used locally sourced, sustainable materials — timber, flint, clay, and lime — and what modern builders can learn from these centuries-old practices.