VANDALISM AND OPEN-AIR MUSEUMS.
IT is unfortunately only too often that we hear of the destruction of what is old and beautiful to make room for what is new and perhaps necessary ; but it is seldom that so wanton and needless a piece of destruction is permitted as that which has deprived the little village of Coldharbour by Dorking of one of its chief ornaments. Coldharbour, as those who have been fortunate enough to visit it know, is one of the prettiest villages in the South of England. Its cottages are set in the fern and red sand of a steep hillside between Leith Hill and Anstiebury Camp, and, like the :neighbouring village of Friday Street among the pines, it has somehow an air of Switzerland. But the destroyers have got to work upon it. Professor Baldwin Brown, writing to Tuesday's Times, describes the process. The school buildings are being recon- structed, and in order to make room for two outbuildings, the schoolmaster's coal-shed and the school latrines, two trees have been sacrificed. One is a noble elm, which all visitors to the village will remember because, as Professor Brown says, it "focussed the whole uniquely picturesque view." This elm had been felled when Professor Brown wrote to the Times. The other tree, which was to be felled and presumably now
has fallen, is "a singularly perfect Spanish chestnut in the prime of its growth, under which, quite in orthodox style, the village smithy stands.'" By this time, then, the village smithy has been deprival' of its shade and the village of its fine trees. And for what? To make room for two out- buildings, both of which should be and could have been placed in as obscure positions as possible. How do these things happen ? How is it that a firm of London architects, members of an artistic profession, can be content to add such an achievement as this to their record ? How does a body like the Surrey Education Committee come to allow local authority thus to stultify its own objects ? It is really difficult to find an answer.
The Education Committee, surely, cannot have properly understood what was about to happen. For what is educa- tion if one of its ideals is not to teach a reverence for what is beautiful and natural, and to bring young people to see the value and interest of such things as noble trees ? We plant trees to commemorate national events ; we associate the shade of ancient trees with historic deeds, famous preachers like Wesley, great Queens like Elizabeth,—often wrongly, doubtless, but the point is the honour done to the tree. We try to get school-children to understand the object and the pleasure of an Arbor Day, and the duty of planting trees for those that come after us, and here in a village like Cold- harbour the children are shown an elm and a chestnut in their prime being cut down to make room for a school coal-hole. Vandalism could no further go. We are brought back once again, in the face of destruction of this kind, to the need of supporting the educative work of the various associations, such as the Kyrie Society, the Selborne Society, and the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest and Natural Beauty, and others which set their face against the destroy- ing of what should be cherished and preserved. The National Trust, we notice, have just issued their fifteenth annual Report, and they are to be heartily congratulated upon a most admirable record. The acquisitions of the Trust made during the past eighteen months alone would entitle them to the gratitude of the nation. Sixteen acres of Grayswood Common, Haslemere; White Barrow, one of the remaining Long Barrows of Wiltshire, on Salisbury Plain; the cottage at Nether Stowey where Coleridge wrote " Kubla Khan" and part of " The Ancient Mariner " ; eighty acres of the Leigh Woods, Bristol ; fifty-two acres forming the Morte Point, bAween Ilfracombe and Barnstaple; the field known as The Goswells, Windsor, purchased to secure the beauty of the view of the castle from the river; the Children's Field at Knowle, transferred to the Trust by the rector; eighteen acres of Brasted Chart, Kent; thirty-six acres of Frydinghurst Common and Stoatley Green, Hindhead; and finally, the seventy acres of the Cheddar Cliffs, including the quarry in the centre of the well-known Gorge,—that is a list of which the Trust may be rightly proud. When it is added that the yearly income of the Trust is no more than £450, contributed by a few public-spirited men and women, and that most of these acquisitions have entailed the raising of large ,sums by private subscriptions, the achievement must be owned to be indeed remarkable.
Are there other ways in which we could assist Societies such as the National Trust to preserve what is best in the inheritance from the past which we hold to-day, than by subscribing towards the purchase of historic buildings and fine natural features of the English countryside ? An interesting suggestion is made in the World's Work by the writer who signs himself "Home Counties." He has been travelling in Denmark, and has been much struck with the scope and the value of the open-air museum at Lyngby, near Copenhagen, an area of ground set apart for the erection and preservation of old country buildings doomed otherwise to destruotion, examples of countrymen's arts such as weaving, thatching, and carpentry, and a collection of old-fashinned farm implements now being superseded by modern con- trivances. Why should we in England not have a Lyngby ? he asks in effect ; and if his travels had carried him further, he might have asked why we should not have an open-air museum such as Sweden possesses in Skansen and the Kulturhistoriska Museum in Lund, and such as Norway can show her visitors in the Bygdo Museum near Christiania.. Skansen, perhaps, is nearest to Lyngby in the objects it aims at, for Lund and Bygdo both exhibit buildings and interiors representing the richer or more aristocratic life of the country, while Skansen aims chiefly at giving examples of the less sophisticated arts and crafts. But in Bygdi5 and Skansen alike there have been cottages and farm and other buildings brought from various parts of Scandinavia; in Skansen, for instance, there is a primitive stone hut from Blekinge, in South Sweden, and a belfry from Jemtland, in North Sweden, while in Bygdo, besides the farm cottages, there is a small wooden church near a village green,—the green being set apart for village dances and other performances. As to fuller details, if the idea of an English out-of-doors museum commends itself to inquirers, they should refer to the presidential address given by Mr. F. A. Bather to the Museums Association in 19013, to be found in the Museums Journal. Skansen covers sixty acres, laid out in woods, paths, ponds, and gardens, and among its exhibits are cottages, farm buildings, belfries, charcoal- burners' and Eskimo huts, a maypole, milestones, old carriages and carts, stocks, and even old cannon. There are enclosures for Scandinavian animals and plants, a Lapp encampment, and a platform for national dances. The attendants wear national dresses, and all in national dress are admitted free. Besides dances, there are fates on such days as May 1st, with processions and performances of music, and even of saga-plays in the summer evenings.
The question is whether such open-air museums could be made to succeed in England; whether they would commend themselves to English national tendencies of thought and habit. It is somewhat difficult to be sanguine as to the possi- bility of removing country buildings to fresh sites, though "Home Counties" thinks that the expense of re-erection should not be great. Would not the expense of removal be the real difficulty ? On the other hand, it is undoubtedly the fact that there are many things connected with English country life of which we are losing sight every year as fresh contrivances take their place, and which might be collected into centrally situated museums,— possibly into well-built farmhouses and barns or granaries used as museums. One of the disappearing objects which it is suggested in the World's Work would be suitable for an open,-air museum is the windmill, and perhaps a well-placed windmill might be the nucleus of a local museum which should contain such farm imple- ments as ploughs, harrows, and flails, examples of farm carts and other vehicles, and the smaller farm tools in their various forms. Later generations will wish to see the implements used to-day, as we should like to see the ploughs used when linchets first began to line the downiands of the South and West Country. Other examples of country industries might find a place in the museum ; the many ways of thatching, for instance, or of weaving, with the weavers' looms; and there should be representative types of all sorts of cottage furni- tare, chairs, tables, clocks, spits, mirrors, cradles, fire-dogs, and other disappearing relics of bygone and bygoing days. The museum to contain such things as these should be in the open air of the country rather than in the streets of a town ; and if the site were suitably chosen, there is no reason why such a building should not become the natural nucleus of something mach more extensive, even if, as would probably be the case, it developed along characterietically British lines rather than those of Scandinavian tradition and romance.
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