England #16 - The Motoring Museum in The England Chronicles - September 2024

(Monday September 16, 2024)

Why yes, I am stretching Monday over waaaay too many entries! That’s because I have waaaay too many pictures. This entry isn’t even going to include The Slaughters. You’re welcome! 

The Cotswold Motoring Museum in Bourton-on-the-Water is also too much fun/too full of… stuff...to share an entry with anything else. I’m not that interested in cars in general, but I do love old cars (I love old anything) and not only did it have a gazillion old cars, there were also old toys and tons of motoring-related memorabilia. It was much more impressive than I was expecting, and I’d love to go through it again. The only downside was an incredibly annoying “influencer” and her entourage who kept blocking the way as she had her photo taken repeatedly beside various cars. Well, I assumed she was an influencer. If she was actually famous surely they wouldn’t have been doing photoshoots when the museum was open. I see now that she didn’t make it into a single one of my many many shots so she probably wasn’t quite as pervasive as I thought at the time. Darned influencers! 

The museum is an a very pretty old building, with lots of fun stuff outside too, which I posted a little of in the previous entry.

And inside it is absolutely PACKED with stuff. It’s hard to take it all in! And it goes on and on through a bunch of rooms. I kept thinking we were done, and we’d round a corner and find more. 

 This was the inside of a caravan (what we in the US call a camper). They had several on display, fitted out to look like people were living in it years ago. This must have been one of the earliest caravans, judging by the contents, and looks very livable. 

This seems to be the only picture I got of the outside, and it’s hard to even tell what it is. There was just so much stuff, it was impossible to take it all in!

Quite a few of the cars had these cutouts of drivers inside, which startled me more than once. 

Driving accessories from back when you needed eye protection due to lack of windshields -

I had never heard of Brum, but he was a popular children’s show character and this is the actual little car used in the show. The opening and closing sequences were filmed here at the Motoring Museum. For some reason I thought it was a very old show, but it originally ran from 1991-2002. Which as I type that makes me realize…that IS a very old show despite not being from the 60s or 70s!! It feels like 2002 was just a few years ago and I do not know what on earth is going on with time.  

This seems out of order and features extremely dirty upholstery, but I do like seeing the inside of old cars. 

There were exhibits featuring other modes of transportation as well. 

The exhibits were in somewhat chronological order — well, probably very chronological, although we wandered so much it wasn’t obvious for the most part - but the groovy 60s and 70s were especially fun. 

Radio Caroline  is a pirate radio station started in 1964. It was broadcast from a number of ships in international waters so couldn’t be shut down. It’s still broadcasting although it’s not illegal anymore. That is actually a very interesting Wikipedia link to an extremely long article that I just skimmed due to time constraints, but if you want to know more about ship-based pirate radio check it out. 

Souvenirs from Princess Anne’s wedding in 1973. I’m assuming the little cars were souvenirs. It was a fun display of auto related memorabilia regardless. 

Another fun caravan from the 60s. And no outside shot, darn it. I think it was a VW van. OH, lol, no it wasn’t - it says Range Rover right by the steps. 

The old toy section. I was NOT expecting creepy dolls! And other creepy toys! But being me I looooooved them. I also love the signs saying “Don’t Touch”. Like I want my soul to be sucked out by evil dolls and bears and monkeys. 

And a few more of the old toys. You’d need to go through a dozen times to soak all this in.

And finally, Brum at home! 

Next stop in the Day That Will Never End, The Slaughters and Stow-on-the-Wold!