Museum Collection: Transport

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Great Western Railway buttonA copper alloy button with the intertwined letters GWR. It would have dropped off the uniform of a Great Western Railway employee and was found in Sandy Leaze, which was a field that was built over in the 1960s.

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Bristol Tramways buttonA copper alloy button from a Bristol Tramways & Carriage Company Ltd uniform that was found in a garden on Tory in Bradford. The company operated busses to Bradford on Avon from 1936, when it took over the Bath company, until becoming Bristol Omnibus Comapny in 1957. The design of the button looks older than 1936.

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Holt Junction railway station signOne of the enamelled station signs from the former Holt Junction railway station. The station was built by the Great Western Railway when it opened a branch from the Wilts Somerset & Weymouth Railway in 1857. When the Berks & Hants Extension Railway opened from Pewsey to Devizes in 1862, direct trains from London to the West Country ran through Holt. The station closed in 1966.

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Spencer Moulton railway springOne of the main products of the Spencer Moulton Rubber Company in Bradford were springs, like this one, for railway vehicles. Pads of rubber were bonded to both faces of steel plates and several would be used together to dampen vibration on suspensions, draw-bars and buffers.

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Limpley Stoke station platform ticket A platform ticket from Limpley Stoke Station which would have allowed the holder to go on to the platform, to see someone off on a train perhaps, but not to board a train. A station booking offices had banks of ready-printed tickets for every destination. This example is a reproduction of an original and was issued when the station was used as a shop called “The Titfield Thunderbolt” for railway enthusiasts (it is now in Larkhall, Bath).

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Horse shoeFor hundreds of years the main means of transport, apart from walking, was by horse. Blacksmiths in Bradford and in each of the villages produced untold numbers of horse shoes. Until recently, they were made of wrought iron, which would have had to be imported into the area, because there is no source of iron in the Bradford Hundred.

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Moulton bicyclesMoulton bicycles were designed and made in Bradford on Avon. Dr Alex Moulton, of the Bradford rubber manufacturing family, designed these icons of the 1960s to utilise the shock-absorbing properties of rubber in their suspension. Bradford Museum possesses examples of two models- the Standard and the Deluxe.

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Bath Road milestoneMIlestones on the roads that belonged to the Bradford Roads Turnpike Trust between Cockhill, just outside Trowbridge and Bathford in Somerset had a distinctive cast iron plate that gave the mileage to Bath. The 10, 9 and 8 mile plates are still in place, but the 6 mile plate had been missing until given to Bradford on Avon Museum in 2015. It probably dates fro 1792-3 when the Bath Road was made.

 

RAC signEach of the main entries into Bradford is today marked by a cast iron sign that list some of the attractions of the town. Previously the advertisement was provided by the Royal Automobile Club in the form of an enamelled steel plate.

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