Amberley Chalk Pits is a “museum that works”: crafts, industries, inventions are brought alive by enthusiasts and experts. There is a blacksmith’s shop, a potter’s workshop, printing works, a boatbuilder’s, a wheelwright’s and a workshop that maintains the engines housed at the museum.

Such depictions of bygone industry are not uncommon. But at Amberley the workshops are not inhabited by the slightly comical model dummies, dressed in period costume and bent awkwardly over their task. These are real, live people operating the lathes, or wheels, or carving with great dexterity.

“We normally have at least four craftsmen operating here during the day, ” says Howard Stenning, education officer. “Some of them are carrying on with a trade they have retired from but others are fulfilling a lifelong ambition to spend their time doing something that has previously been a hobby. Our bus conductor, who helps maintain the 1920s open-top bus you can ride on, used to be a shoe mender, which would have been interesting as we do have a cobbler’s here, but his real passion is for old vehicles.”

Riding through the 36-acre site on the open-top 1920 Leyland N-type bus, those accustomed to theme-park replications may feel rather bemused. There is something different about the Tram Shelter, the Brickyard Drying Shed, the tall wind pump, and the busy little locomotives that chug along the narrow-gauge railway. They are all authentic, carefully moved from where they lay, sometimes rusting and crumbling, in and around Sussex towns and villages, and lovingly restored.

“School parties come here for many different reasons. Primary schools often include a visit to support projects about materials or movement or transport, while older groups come for information about electricity or design and technology,” says Howard Stenning. “The visit works best when the teacher discusses the group’s requirements with me beforehand.

“Today we have a party of nine-year-old children looking at the subject of ‘holes’ - from every conceivable angle: how holes are dug, how they are covered, their importance in machinery, in industrial processes, what goes down them, what comes up. I have suggested a programme tailored to the time they have to spend here.”

The museum is set in the beauty of the South Downs, on a site that was formerly the Amberley Chalk Pits. From the 1840s to the 1960s chalk was quarried and burned in kilns to make lime for mortar, fertiliser and decorating. Chalk has always been an important component of industry, our Neolithic ancestors mining it for flints to produce sharp tools and weapons.

Amberley railway station is right beside the museum, as it was used by Pepper and Son, the owners of the quarry for most of its time. The sheds used for bagging and storing the lime are now the ticket office and shop.

Groups of A-level chemistry students regularly visit the museum to study the lime production process and the properties and effects of lime. In the buildings restored from the original Pepper offices, visitors can see a slide show about the story of Sussex industry and the working life of the site. Geological displays are also housed here.

Cliff Fidler produces prints on the stately Columbian Eagle press. The visitors talk about the amazing Victorian machine, which fascinates because you can see exactly how the parts move together to produce the print.

The machines are not just for show: the museum printer, Alan Morris, previously head of business studies at the London College of Printing, is willing to print on the machines for people who have suitable material.

“If I know what area the children are from, and what they have been studying, I try to find some prints to run off that tie in with what they know,” says Alan Morris.

Pre-dating health and safety awareness, much of the machinery is definitely not for hands-on experience. Children are encouraged to observe and their involvement stems from their questioning. These men and women are pleased to chat about their craft as they demonstrate their expertise.

However, there are activities that visitors can try out for themselves. One favourite stems from the 1910 Duke and Ockendon Wind Pump, originally installed at Pulborough and now standing by the quarry well. It pumps the water to a tank suppling a series of domestic handpumps, dating from the first half of the century, which inevitably result in some wet play for children.

The buses and locomotives also provide the feel of living in times gone by, the particular sound of the bus engine, the seat arrangements, the dubious comfort of unsprung quarrymen’s coaches. The bus garage houses the 1920 Leyland N-type, originally No 125 in the Southdown fleet, whose body served as a summer house in a Pulborough garden for many years, and a recently restored 1914 Tilling-Stevens TS3 petrol-electric double decker, believed to be the oldest operating motor bus in regular service in Britain.

“Transport is a popular topic for schools,” says Howard Stenning. “One project compares the designs of the old buses, seeing how the shape of the body, wheels and interior changed as engineering progressed.” Components, rescued from around the area, are displayed in the bus garage, and in the village garage. Both are copies of garages of the 1920s and 1930s, and include Messrs Floyds’ cycle-repair shop, the contents of which were donated when Mr Floyd closed his Littlehampton shop in 1987.

Denise Harber, headteacher of St Andrew’s Primary School, Nuthurst, near Horsham, is looking at the subject of Journeys with her group of Year 1 and 2 pupils.

“We have considered the river bank and the open road and now we are looking at buses and trains, comparing them with modern counterparts,” she says. “There is a Hillside Trail that we have just walked along to get a good view of the valley and we have been talking about different ways of approaching Amberley. There is such a variety of things to look at. It is a very safe place to come to, considering the amount of machinery about. There is good back-up in terms of resources and information.”

The Seeboard Electricity Hall is the latest addition to the museum, displaying such diverse items as a huge Belliss and Morcom steam generator, built in 1919, and a Sinclair C5 electric car. Here, “hands-on” comes into its own, with the Gordon Gallery providing experiments illustrating the fundamentals of electricity. The domestic gallery contains electrical appliances from the 1920s on - cookers, heaters, even the short-lived electric hot-water bottle and shoe dryers.

Spooner and Gordon’s Wheelwright’s shop, built in 1840 in Horsham, has been painstakingly re-assembled. As you telephone from the red Jubilee box, your call is answered in the tiny exchange using equipment designed in 1936. And yes, you press Buttons A and B.

o Amberley Chalk Pits Museum, Amberley, Arundel, West Sussex, BN18 9LT. Tel: 0798 831370. Opening times: March 22 to October 29 1995, Wednesday to Sunday in term time, 10am-5pm. Open every day in school holidays. Prices for school parties: Pounds 1.60 per child, one adult per 10 children free. There must be one adult supervising per 10 children. Extra adults Pounds 4.