Today is #WorldHeritageDay which means that everyone's posts will be full of castles, historic houses, paintings, ceramics and so on. SO we'd just like to remind you that this is heritage as well!

We can't make this relevant to Amberley Museum but a cut-out model of an Etruscan tomb from 1837 is too good not to pass on!

Today is #internationalbatday and we have lots of bats around the site (but sadly, no belfries). However, they are notoriously difficult to photograph so we found these instead.

We know that people have seen the girls before but as it's National Pet Day, we wanted to remind/inform you of the sheer insanity that is Pet Rodents. Fiendishly intelligent, astonishingly destructive, adorably cuddly and remarkably companionable, they are only for the discerning!

We have a new bus! Life doesn't get much more exciting!

It's 8-track Day! We're quite proud that our Creedence Clearwater Revival 8-track is still sealed in its wrapper. These were a good way to while away a long journey...

We're sure @durotrigesdig.bsky.social has one somewhere...

#FindsFriday! We have excavated areas of our industrial site. We don't have chariot wheels but we found these hidden in the de Witt kilns by our railway. Don't get too excited but these are wheelbarrow wheels! About a century old!

Here is a door for #adoorablethursday We don't have grand, decorated doors, being an industrial museum. We have small, everyday, well-used doors. Which are still very much appreciated by those who use them.

This is a Tangye gas engine and the gas producer that powers it. Sir Richard Tangye was a fairly amazing chap who produced the lifting jacks to launch the SS Great Eastern, amongst many other things. We have also enjoyed his name in connection with these two items.

This is the best science video of all time. Admittedly, Amberley Museum has nothing to do with space travel or exploration but the chemistry behind controlled explosions was very relevant to the mining of chalk.

We wonder if he met a certain Mr Marconi?

Not strictly museum-based but we felt it to be relevant in so many ways.

Just in case any paleontologists follow us.

Yesterday was Christopher Walken's birthday. A very Happy Birthday, Mr Walken! Back in 1984, you visited here for a few days to film part of the James Bond film 'A View to a Kill', where we played the outside of Main Strike Mine. #christopherwalken #jamesbond #aviewtoakill

It's #InternationalMermaidDay. Of course. We've done our best but all we could find are our goldfish in a small but historic pond. The pond is actually in the foundations of part of the complex around the De Witt kilns. Suitable for a petite, freshwater mermaid, maybe.

An astonishing amount of the industrial past preserved here at Amberley is related to dealing with sewage. Pumping it, transporting it, raising it; such as the Robey engine housed in this lovely little structure. So, Happy Birthday to Sir Joseph Bazalgette of London's drains!

We've always had difficulty joining in with #FindsFriday as an ex-chalk quarry is not an obvious place. However, our Curator made a discovery. An enamel plate, probably dating from the mid-20th century CE. No visible maker's mark but evidence of extensive use. 😜

We've just discovered a small problem with our life memberships.

Given our last post about the weather, this seems very appropriate!

We've had some quite dramatic weather today. So much for Spring...

This is not tenuous at all but today is #InternationalDayoftheSeal Amberley Museum sits just above the banks of the River Arun - we're quite rural really. The River Arun regularly has grey seals visiting. This is Gavin, a regular, who took a rest on someone's paddleboard a few years ago!

It's National Poetry Day. There are poems about Sussex by luminaries such as Belloc and Kipling but they best we can do about the Museum is the doggerel written by ChatGPT. 😟

Did you know that today is World Sparrow Day? We think this is marvellous. Cheerful, underrated little creatures.

This is the old cafe building from Fairmile Bottom on the A29 - a wonderful name for anywhere. It now lives at Amberley Museum and houses our Emporium - a treasure house of stuff you didn't know you needed.

Isn't this lovely?

We quite like this one as well.

Mothers' Day often brings a large selection of four-pawed visitors and today has been no exception. This is Fudge. Fudge is 7 and on her first visit to the Museum. Her favourite thing has been saying hello to everyone else!

National Pi Day. A wheely important concept in an Industrial Museum!

Today would be Jack Kerouac's birthday. Whilst we don't have any known literary figures at Amberley, we do have a Telex that has begun to work with ChatGPT to churn out 'poetry': Amberley Museum, a treasure so rare, In the heart of Sussex, with so much to share...

World Plumbing Day! Our plumbers still actually work with lead, although thankfully not lead piping (that was Colonel Mustard in the Library).

International Women's Day. As illustrated by Helen, a skilled train driver here at Amberley!

Hypatia of Alexandria (d. March 415) was a mathematician, astronomer & philosopher. First woman known to lead a major school of thought. She taught advanced math & #science & defied gender/religious barriers. There have been #WomenInSTEM for millennia.🔭📐 #WomensHistoryMonth #astronomy

We've made it to 500 followers! We are ever so, EVER SO excited! Thank you!

Did you know that it's National Pig Day today? Whilst we can't do porcines with ears, snouts and curly tails, we thought of pig iron like this. This is iron once it's been smelted from ore before it's then made into wrought iron, cast iron or stainless steel and we have A LOT of those on site.

This is our Rural Telephone Exchange. It used to be a fuel store many moons ago but now houses equipment from the 1940s. It runs our internal telephone system. And it still works when we have a power cut!

We made pots! On a wheel and everything! We're wheely quite proud of these, although the jug was a bit of an accident. Not quite up to the standards of Samian ware or Crown Derby but we're working on it.

This is a steam engine with its jacket on and off. We didn't know that they look like a wrapped Mini Chocolate Roll underneath. This is Polar Bear, who is undergoing a truly substantial amount of renovation and conservation and should be full steam ahead later this year.

Being an industrial museum, we are a repository of useful(less) information often unknown to others. Today is the birthday of the great Harry Brearley in 1871, who invented stainless steel. He made cleaning many things and the washing up so much easier.

So disappointing. Archaeology and history belong to us all, not just the wealthy. Has it been studied? Conserved properly? Published? Just depriving the rest of us of knowledge and understanding.

Yet another example of everyone having to chip in to buy back our shared heritage.  "this once in a generation discovery" This time £74.000 was sought to pay metal detectorist and landowner for a museum to have the chance to acquire this Iron Age Hoard. 1/3 share.google/Lr0bmVeQW5qs...

It's #internetfriendsday! We've made lots of friends on Bluesky (although we'd love to make some more). Thank you to everyone who has decided that they like us! And sorry for disturbing you, as it's also Apology Day 😀

This is Erna Schneider Hoover, who had one of the first patents for computer software in 1971. She invented a program to deal with phonecalls when the manual switchboard got overwhelmed. Surprisingly, she also found a retirement job for Princess Leia. #womeninstem

There are an unusual number of bashful people around the Museum today, as it's Pay A Compliment Day. There would be more but we're a bit out of practise.

For #adoorablethursday we offer this instance of a door and a window being swopped over. We always love where you can see changes in a building!

Today is Create-a-Vacuum Day. So here is one that was made earlier. Much earlier. In 1905, in fact.

Did you know that rail wagons can act like weather vanes? They don't indicate the wind direction but if it's going to be wet.

An old man was out in his rowboat, he saw a bunch of fish. Hello little fishes, what kind of fish are you ? They yelled back Can you speak up as we are a little herd of herring