Wythall Works
The early part of the museum’s open season has seen a fairly full programme of special events and this has kept our volunteer staff busy, preparing the site, manning it on the day, and then clearing up afterwards. The Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations saw a Union Jack flying from the end of the railway carriages and, for the June 2-4 event days, bunting round the admission hut and the café.
Despite the effort required to staff events days, other things have happened and the most noticeable to our visitors will be that in May, three Midland Red vehicles that have been hidden round the back of the Shire Hall for years were brought out in to the public display area. These are S23, number 5941, the short Ford, PHA 370M and the SON ‘tug’ GHA 333. The first two have already been thoroughly cleaned externally and items stored inside removed. The S23 is now in the process of having its interior cleaned.
The movement of the three Midland Red vehicles mentioned above has cleared space at the back of the Shire Hall and allowed access to clear some of the vegetation that has encroached in to this area over the years. Some fairly big saplings have been removed and it is planned to trim the hedge separating our site from the caravan club land. Whilst moving vehicles at the side of the Shire Hall, the opportunity was also taken to bring the two Leyland Nationals used for storage together at the side of the Shire Hall and to move Mark Priest’s Volvo to alongside the Scania Hall. The sale of the accumulated aluminium scrap not only brought in a not insubstantial income but also created more space.
The need to find space to house items cluttering display areas, and from the S23 and Ford, resulted in some re-organisation in the prefab building. The space thus created has now been filled!
In the week before the Two Museums event day, there were some new arrivals at the museum. Two Bundy clock tops, which have been kindly donated, were collected and fairly easily housed pending restoration work. Rather larger was another donation, a Daimler Fleetline chassis, previously used for apprentice training at the PSV centre, Tile Hill College. This arrived at the back of the North Birmingham Busways Matador and was parked out of public gaze for the event day. The chassis, originally a Coventry bus, is complete and the intention is to have it on display as a ‘delivery chassis’.
Two Museums day also saw the Model Bus Federation (MBF) using the Scania Hall to display their models and preparations for this saw the hall being tidied and the bus stop signs display board being fixed to the wall. Space being at a premium on this day, Pete Murphy hit upon the idea of parking the four Birmingham buses not required for service as a backdrop to the MBF display. This met with much approval and was retained for the early June open days, with 1950s single deckers in front.
Phil Ireland
Chapel Lane, Wythall, Worcs B47 6JX
Tel : 01564 826471 e-mail us
A registered educational charity no 507191
