Amberley Museum

Amberley Museum sits in old chalk quarries near Amberley station in West Sussex. The 36-acre site was once used to turn chalk into lime for mortar and cement. Several original lime kilns, including a De Witt set, still stand among the buildings. A quarry tunnel appears in the James Bond film A View to a Kill. A nature trail shows the site’s geology and natural history. The museum holds large collections of industrial and local heritage. The Print Shop displays presses from the 1850s and Linotype machines used in newspaper work. Volunteers operate machinery to show how it worked and to print museum publications. Other buildings include a wheelwright’s shop, a blacksmith’s forge, and a 1930s garage. A narrow-gauge railway runs on the site with 45 locomotives and about 80 wagons. Regular craft demonstrations include woodturning, broom-making, and blacksmithing. The Southdown bus collection has working buses from the 1910s to the 1930s. Special events are held throughout the year. The museum also hosts a rural telephone exchange with 1940s equipment and a fire station with historic fire engines.