Home Front
Client: Newhaven Fort

The Home Front galleries expand on an existing blitz son e lumiere setting and an existing air raid audio experience to bring vividly to life wartime Sussex, highlighting especially the critical role that women played in the war effort and the effects that it had on children’s lives.

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A series of immersive, stylised settings evoke the world of the 1940s. The settings are packed with things to discover, playfully exploring rationing and recipes, hearing personal stories of women at work in factories, farms and the armed services as well as the vital work of volunteers and finding out about the everyday life challenges that every family faced.

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We can listen in on how the wartime government planned ways of keeping everyone safe, healthy and well fed – even laying the foundations of our post war NHS. See into a railway carriage and see who is travelling, and why. We can join an ARP training session and test what we have learned. In the corner shop and draper’s shop we see how sweets and “luxury” goods were rationed and how people had to “make do and mend” or buy from the “spivs” on the black market. We also see how essential supplies of tea were kept flowing to all theatres of the war!

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Passing the front garden, given over to growing food, assisted by the industrious gnomes of the “gnome guard”, visitors enter a typical kitchen and living room. We can see what is on the table for tea and see how people spent their free time to the strains of the wireless in the corner, playing news items, comedy shows  and of course Vera Lynn. Object rich displays showcase the fort’s collection including all sorts of household appliances, toys and games and Vera Lynn’s dresses and accessories.

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Beyond the blitz experience there is an area devoted to fire fighting and rescue where guests can even test their nerve in de-fuzing an unexploded bomb.

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Finally a much loved air raid shelter experience has been re-imagined with upo to date audio technology and a more hard hitting presentation.