Aston Manor Road Transport Museum
See Our Exciting New Revised 2013 Events Calendar
More details to follow
Order your Birmingham "Tin Front" models from us.
Forward models have produced models of 2533 and 2548
FOR MORE DETAILS AND TO SUPPORT US BY ORDERING YOUR MODELS HERE, PLEASE EMAIL amrtm1@aol.co.uk
If you wish to contact us you can email us at amrtm1@aol.co.uk or call us on 07914712073 (please leave a message and we will get back to you)
Click here for photos of our move to, and progress at Aldridge.
Shenstone Drive
Good publicity locally brought the offer of a new location very close to the
Jack Allen site so once again our autumn and early winter have been fully
occupied moving vehicles and artefacts to Shenstone Drive, Aldridge, literally a
350 yard journey. The site is in some ways not ideal - there is limited space
that will take double-deck buses - but it is bright and airy and offers real
potential as a museum. Open days for 2013 are now being planned and there is a
chance of at least limited opening to the public from March onwards, though
there are many hurdles still to be crossed.
Our Plans
The biggest hurdle of all that we now face is to achieve the level of income
that we need to stay on this - or any other - site. While our events in 2012
have been successful, they have not made up for the income we need from a steady
stream of visitors; we are looking at a wider range of events and attractions,
not just for our bus enthusiast supporters, but covering wider transport
interests - our light commercial vehicles will figure more prominently, with
cars and even railways and canals making an appearance, we hope. Local history
groups, art and photographic societies - all may play a part in our future as a
place to meet or to hold displays. Last, but far from least, our shop, which has
been functioning throughout, has once again a base and will feature strongly in
the plans, with a great location now being prepared.
Community Involvement
As ever, we would welcome your input - what can we do to make ourselves part of
the Aldridge community? What can we do for your society? What can you do to work
with us to make the museum the focus of your local activities?
Come and get Involved
Finally, of course, we still welcome volunteers and new members. You don’t need
to know anything about buses or vehicles to volunteer - we do need skilled
people to help us, of course, so if you’re a retired mechanic or bodybuilder and
would like to keep your skills alive, do get in contact - but we need everyone -
there’s always jobs to do, from cleaning and making tea to sorting and
cataloguing our archives.
If you’d like to help, drop in and see us - we’re there on Tuesdays and Sundays during the day, and on Thursday evenings, and also find a bit more out by looking at our Facebook page……..
The Museum closed its doors at Witton for the final time on Sunday October 30th 2011. We were unable to convince Birmingham City Council of the value of the Museum to the City and, crucially, to be given a reasonable period in which to raise what would have been a quite significant sum of money to secure the premises and therefore the Museum for future generations.
Leading up to the new year, many hours were spent by our dedicated members and volunteers involved with the massive task of clearing out our collection from the site at Witton. The keys to Witton were returned to Birmingham City Council at the beginning of January, which closed another chapter in the historic building's history.
The majority of our collection was then moved to the former Jack Allen dustcart factory in Aldridge, initially to be just for storage and not open to the public. Negotiations were undertaken with our landlords in the hope that we could work together to create a new museum on the site and three very highly successful Open Days were held, the first attracting more visitors than any event the Museum had ever held. Unfortunately and very suddenly, the situation on the site changed and, once again, we found ourselves needing to move in the near future.
Although our future is still uncertain, our past is well documented, and the old Aston Manor website will still remain online as a reminder of this
Continue to Old Aston Manor home page
