Skip to content

Walnut Tree Cottage

Walnut Tree Cottage

Walnut Tree Cottage depicts the life of a farmworker and their family in the 1940s.

Walnut Tree Cottage was built in the 1860s and has been furnished to represent the home life of a farmworker in the 1940s.

Every room in the cottage is dressed with objects that were in regular use in the 1940s. Is there anything that you have never seen before? Are there objects that you recognise or do you have something similar in your home today?

Explore a living room, kitchen, scullery and two family bedrooms…along with the outdoor privy.

Please note that although the external work on the cottage is complete, we now need to find additional funding to restore the interior. The current display is temporary, until such time as we are in a position to restore the walls and ceilings to their former glory.

External view of a cottage with a chimney. A black front door and 3 windows.
Internal view of a 1940s kitchen with baking implements on a table by a window.
Wooden sign pointing to a privy
Dining room set up as if in a 1940s home

What can you see in and around Walnut Tree Cottage?

Step into the life of a 1940s farmworker and their family.

Explore our Cottage Living Room, which is decorated to showcase the life of a farmworker and their family in the 1940s.

Can you find the Jones sewing machine, the wireless radio, or the rag rug on the floor?

How does it look similar to your living room? What looks different?

Journey upstairs to explore the bedrooms of the parents and the child who would have lived in this Farmworkers Cottage.

In the parents’ bedroom, can you see the clothes that the farmworkers would have worn in the 1940s? How are these similar or different to your own?

As you explore the child’s bedroom, you might find a classic stuffed animal, simple wooden toys, or even early versions of games that you still play today!

Did you know that many houses did not have a bathroom inside until the 1950s?

This meant that toilets could be found outside and were known as ‘privies’.

See if you can spot our privy. Would you enjoy going outside to go to the loo?

This space is looked after by a team of gardening volunteers and along with the allotment, shows what the farmworker would have grown in their garden.

Explore Denny Abbey and The Farmland Museum

What else will you see on your visit?

Return to Discover to learn more