Buildings in Storage: Chesham High Street
Major road changes in late twentieth-century Chesham transformed the historic town centre and led to the loss of several long-standing buildings. Discover how Chiltern Open Air Museum helped save important shops, a traditional coachworks and a forgotten baker’s oven — preserving valuable stories of local life and trade.
Buildings in Storage: Kempston Slaughterhouse
The Kempston Slaughterhouse, originally located behind a butcher’s shop on Kempston High Street, was rescued from demolition and moved to the Museum. Dating from the nineteenth century and last used around 1935, the building reveals how meat was prepared and sold locally before refrigeration.
Buildings in Storage: St Julians Barn
Discover St Albans Abbey Barn, also known as St Julian’s Barn, a vast medieval monastic barn now in storage at the Chiltern Open Air Museum. Built in the fourteenth century to store grain for the abbey, this impressive structure reveals the scale of monastic farming and medieval craftsmanship.
Buildings in Storage: Dunstable Shop
Discover the story of the Dunstable Shop, a medieval timber-framed building now in storage at the Chiltern Open Air Museum. From Roman roads and royal planning to inns, shops and centuries of changing use, this building reveals how travel and trade shaped the historic market town of Dunstable.
Buildings in Storage: Watford High Street 177-9 & 193-5
Explore the remarkable rescue of 177–179 and 193–195 High Street, Watford — two fifteenth-century timber-framed commercial buildings saved from demolition in the 1970s. Now preserved in store at Chiltern Open Air Museum, these medieval structures reveal layers of urban life, from warehouses and wagon ways to bakeries and twentieth-century shops.
Buildings in Storage: Aylesbury Saddler’s Workshop
Built around 1773 and hidden behind a shop in Kingsbury Square, Aylesbury, this timber-framed saddlery served local farmers for nearly two centuries. Saved from demolition and now in store at Chiltern Open Air Museum, it represents the skilled craftsmanship and rural trades that shaped Buckinghamshire’s market towns.
Buildings in Storage: Little Gaddesden Living Van
The Little Gaddesden Living Van is a rare survival of mobile rural accommodation, believed to have housed a gamekeeper, possibly on the Ashridge Estate. Dismantled and saved in 2001, this substantial timber van offers insight into estate life, seasonal labour and the practical realities of countryside employment in Hertfordshire. Now in store at Chiltern Open Air Museum, it represents an often overlooked but important part of rural heritage.
Buildings in Storage: Jackson Studios
Jackson Studios, the birthplace of many iconic British sounds including Motorhead’s Ace of Spades, is currently in storage at Chiltern Open Air Museum.
Finding Us
Newland Park, Gorelands Lane
Chalfont St Peter HP8 4AB