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About Chiltern Open Air Museum
The gardens at the Chiltern Open Air Museum offer a journey through time, reflecting the diverse horticultural traditions and rural heritage of the Chilterns region. Each garden has been carefully designed to complement the historic buildings on site, displaying how people across different eras cultivated and enjoyed their outdoor spaces.
The museum’s traditional gardens are rich in historical context. They include a formal Arts and Crafts garden, inspired by the famed designer Gertrude Jekyll, featuring carefully structured planting and seasonal colour schemes typical of the early 20th century. There is also a Victorian fernery, evoking the era’s fascination with exotic and shaded plants, and an Iron Age herb garden, demonstrating the practical use of herbs for cooking and medicine in ancient times. The ‘Dig for Victory’ allotment, located beside the 1940s prefab house, illustrates wartime self-sufficiency, growing classic vegetables such as leeks, beetroot, courgettes, and cucumber, many of which help supply the museum’s cafe.
Among the site’s spaces is Haddenham Cottage garden, an expansive and colourful example of a traditional cottage garden, filled with flowers and vegetables. Similarly, Leagrave Cottage garden, once known as “Apple Tree Yard,” features rambling roses, sweet peas, and a solitary apple tree that anchors its history. The Post-WWII prefab garden captures the neat, practical style of mid-20th-century suburban life, complete with lawn, rose beds, and productive fruit and vegetable plots.
Within the museum’s 45-acre site are apple and cherry orchards, dedicated to preserving and celebrating heritage fruit varieties. The apple orchard includes a range of trees that were once common in the Chilterns, such as D’Arcy Spice, Golden Harvey, and Langley Pippin. These traditional varieties reflect the region’s long-standing connection to orchard cultivation and the diversity of fruit once grown here. In addition, the museum’s heritage cherry orchard features over 20 rare trees, including the Prestwood Black and Prestwood White varieties, which were originally developed locally. The orchards not only conserve these endangered cultivars but also serve as valuable educational resources, connecting visitors to the agricultural traditions of the past.
Collectively, the gardens form a living archive of rural life, demonstrating how landscape, utility, and beauty have intertwined throughout the history of the Chilterns.
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Website:
https://www.coam.org.uk
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