On a pleasant sunny Saturday morning a group of OAS members with some guests travelled from Orpington and nearby to the Brooklands Museum just outside London in leafy Weybridge, Surrey. Some travelled by train and some by car, and all arrived around the same time mid-morning. A few of us had some refreshments in the Sunbeam Café before starting our tours of the many places of interest in the museum.
Brooklands is so historic. It was the birthplace of British motorsport and aviation, and the site of many engineering and technological achievements throughout eight decades of the 20th century.
The racing circuit was constructed by local landowner Hugh Locke King in 1907. It was the first purpose-built racing circuit in the world and was a 2.7 mile banked oval track. Many of the races held there are legendary and plenty of records were set by courageous drivers during its time as well as numerous world record attempts, including the first time a car broke the 100-mph barrier.
Many aviation firsts are also associated with Brooklands, which soon became one of Britain’s first aerodromes. It attracted many aviation pioneers prior to World War 1 and was also a leading aircraft design and manufacturing centre in the 20th century, producing a total of 18,600 new aircraft of nearly 260 types between 1908 and 1987. Brooklands-based aircraft companies such as Bleriot, Hawker, Sopwith and Vickers were key players in the early years of aviation and were crucial to its early development. The Circuit of Britain air race in 1911 started and finished at Brooklands, and both the event and the location later influenced the theme of the classic 1965 British film comedy ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’.
Our tour first took us inside the building where many tests on aircraft design and aircraft engines took place, including jet engines, many of the experiments and pioneering work was carried out by Dr Barnes Wallace, inventor of aircraft design and of course the famous ‘bouncing bombs’ used by the Dam Busters in the 2nd World War.
We toured the history of British motor racing and the beginnings of Formula 1, some amazing cars from different eras including the Formula 1 cars driven by the famous Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna in 1991 and the Formula 1 champion in 1976, British driver James Hunt.
For some of us it was back to the Sunbeam Café for a spot of lunch before embarking on a tour of Concorde within the aircraft park. The Concorde tour was fascinating and included the sounds and vibrations of taking off and reaching speeds of Mach 1 and Mach 2 as we sat in our seats, alas though, there was no Champagne served!! On the way out we were able to glance inside the cockpit area.
We also went inside other commercial aircraft, and many were older propeller type too. There were other aircraft on display inside another building, including a Hawker Harrier jump jet and a Hawker Hurricane.
There is also a London Bus Museum as part of Brooklands and we toured this as well. It was really interesting to see London Buses from different eras. There was a tour on an old route master bus that went outside on local roads where you could stand on the platform at back of the bus and be given a clipped ticket – those were the days.
Finally, parts of the original race circuit are still there and we went to view and stand on the track. Of course the track is over a hundred years old and the concrete does look very old, but you can close your eyes and just imagine a racing car driver in the 1930’s hurtling round the track on the banking at over 120mph. The drivers then were so courageous, the racing cars were nowhere near as fast as they are today, but for that time they were fast and dangerous and the drivers had no crash helmets, just a fabric hat and goggles, no seat belts and hardly any safety measures at all. Incredible!
We all had a very interesting and enjoyable day, the weather stayed ok too – and the museum was well worth the visit.
by Dave Allen