Lancaster wheel in derelict museum?

Fort Perch Rock might be a better shout? They appear to have a number of aircraft wheels in their collection, if Google Images is to be trusted.

Twin Otter,
Apologies for side tracking you, at least we all now know. Great result. Aren’t the Hastings Mainwheel / Tyre assemblies same ones as Halifax used ? If so, thats 2 around UK now not being used in a Project. Just saying lol !!

Bill, my understanding is that some of the ‘better’ assemblies that came out of Scampton did go to ‘Projects’ & IIRC one exchange was done at NAM before the tyres on TG517 were tyre-filled!

Thanks Rich,

Bill T.

Aren’t the Hastings Mainwheel / Tyre assemblies same ones as Halifax used ? If so, thats 2 around UK now not being used in a Project. Just saying lol !!

Cheers guys , over and out.

Bill T.

Hastings wheels are the same as later Lancaster, Licoln, York, Shackleton, Tudor.. the only variance being in the size of the brake drum and brake units. From browsing a few photos it looks like the later Halifax/Halton got the same wheels at some point.

Meddle,
Glad to help clear that up, thanks for posting as I never would have given it a thought, I guess that label left in there is now historic– :very_drunk::D

Twin Otter,
Apologies for side tracking you, at least we all now know. Great result. Aren’t the Hastings Mainwheel / Tyre assemblies same ones as Halifax used ? If so, thats 2 around UK now not being used in a Project. Just saying lol !!

Cheers guys , over and out.

Bill T.

….. So on a visit to the Newark C/pit Fest a few years ago I was very surprised to see a Lancaster mainwheel assy. parked up outside that first hut on right after you go through the shop entrance. Have a feeling it could be the same Wheel assy. that was in Grange Cavern Museum. (Twin Otter, can you throw any light on this ? ) I’ve got a pic. somewhere of it taken at Newark…..

Sorry for delayed response Bill, but due to forum usability issues I’m struggling to check through everything these days!

Never heard of Grange Cavern Museum and the wheels that you describe at Newark Air Museum did not come from there. They we amongst a set of Hastings spares (ex-RAF Scampton) that were recovered from a private store in South Lincoln in the late 1970s. I was one of the museum members that went to help clear the store!

I hope that this helps! 🙂

Many thanks Bill T and Atcham Tower for putting me on the right track! I’m glad to hear that the wheel still lives. According to Mr. Google G-AIHU crashed in 1947, which is a little after ‘hostilities had ceased’. Oddly enough my Grandmother once claimed that a relative died in a crash the day after VE Day, 1945. I will have to ask her about this next time I see her.

Probably got scrapped.

Bill T.

Sorry I didn’t look at the forum earlier today but the discussion was interesting anyway! In the 1970s I found one of the Halifax’s engine fire walls up on the hill but nothing else. On a recent visit there was no sign of the fire wall.

Aaaaghhhh !!
Good one Atcham. Thanks for straightening it all out. We got there in the end and you got it nailed nicely. Glad it’s still around (Halifax too ).

Bill T.

This was a wheel and tyre from Halifax G-AIHU which crashed on Cwm Mt above Prestatyn. When I went to photograph it in the 1970s at the garage where it was out front to advertise their tyres, the guy in charge told me it was from an aircraft which had crashed on the nearby hill. It later found its way to Grange Cavern Museum. When I saw it there in the 1980s it had the ‘Lancaster’ label. I believe it is now in the Fort Perch Wreck Museum at New Brightion.

Hi Pete B,
Good pic. indeed. No, that wasn’t my machine, mine was parked up on left about 1/3rd way along “lane” it was done out in Khaki /dark green colours. I do remember seeing this M-20 there though. On my last visit there to collect mine, the place was much damper than shown here, only about 4 vehicles left there, with water dripping down, was quite likely I went there in a wet winter period. The talk going around at the height of the Grange Caverns Museum success was that in WW2, these caverns were used by Military to store bombs and that included the “Dam Busters” ones. I never took any pics, in there myself. The track /cum road up there got narrower as you went so that at Auto Jumble time it was a right car/vehicles sqeeze to get in or out. Good fun days though.

Bill T.

I was going to say Dunlop Denovo but I think they are riveted and not bolted it’s also similar to an Isetta wheel. The only other thought is trailer or sidecar.

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Yours then Bill T?

Photo found from the old Museum Guide as illustrated over on the HMVF forum by the way…

Another interesting thread /place of interest. In the very early 1980’s I loaned out My WD M-20 BSA motorcycle to the Grange Cavern Military Museum Collection.To look after whilst I went overseas to earn a crust. The machine was in very original condition and I’d decked it out in all the extra’s. She looked pretty good. At that time, the Caverns were crammed full of Military vehicles and artifacts and were a pleasant walk around the guide lines,the whole lighting system was floodlit behind vehicles and gave a good effect, though it was dark and very damp in there. The caretaker/manager at that time was a chap called Gary ? He owned a very nice OHC 1930’s Velocette Racer and lived locally, he was a good man, doing a good job which was why I loaned out the M-20. The Museum ran several Auto Jumbles through their time up there, they were quite successfull too.

Quite some years later I contacted The Museum and arranged to fetch my machine back out, by this time, the place had closed to the public and loads of stuff had gone. My M-20 was very rusty and needed another restoration. It was a different man now running the museum, pleasant enough chap, but he had no idea where all my Army despatch riders gear had gone to, it was definately gone, no doubt spirited away by someone in the Museum run down confusion. Obviously I was a bit narked about that, so he led me into a room at the back and said,” If you can find anything like you had here, help yourself. ” A good rummage through all the equipment got me most duplicates of my lost stuff and he threw in extra gear too. So that was a very good action by him. Felt a bit sorry for him as the place was dripping water and he obviously didn’t like running it all down, I think he/they had to vacate the Museum due to council problems. My M-20 and all the gear was sold off around time of 911 and the extras e-Bayed later.

I never went back there again, I believe it was vacated within the year after my last visit.

There was indeed a Lancaster mainwheel and tyre assy in there during the museums time. It was looking a bit yuk then parked over against a wall. The story going around at that time about it, was that a Lancaster had indeed crashed in the shallows of the sea somewhere around Gronant/ Prestatyn way around WW2 time and it had been thrown off the crash and bounced away going over a road somewhere even. I remember seeing a Lancaster Mainwheel assy. on display in a garage along that bottom Coast road, in the Gronant area back in 1960’s and I’m fairly certain it was this wheel. The wheel had the “Check” studded tyre very common from WW2 time.

So on a visit to the Newark C/pit Fest a few years ago I was very surprised to see a Lancaster mainwheel assy. parked up outside that first hut on right after you go through the shop entrance. Have a feeling it could be the same Wheel assy. that was in Grange Cavern Museum. (Twin Otter, can you throw any light on this ? ) I’ve got a pic. somewhere of it taken at Newark.

Anyhow, the pic. of that Car wheel posted in here,I’m also pretty certain that was the label placed on the Lancaster mainwheel assy during its time at Grange Cavern Museum, some wag found it later and placed it on what is certainly the only remaining classic item left in there. The Car wheel. :stupid:

And NO, I didn’t place it there either–lol !!!!

Thinking about all this, I’ve never spoken to anyone about the Grange Cavern since those days, so this is another forgotten thing pulled out of the mists of time. Thanks Meddle for posting this.

Bill T.

Were there any Lancaster crashes around there? I am aware that a civil Halifax (G-AIHU) crashed not too far away. Moot point.

Or a caravan perhaps?

It’s a car wheel guys

Not lanc .. too small for a tailwheel.. did they have one there?? most possibly.. but long gone

I’ve been reading a bit more since I started this thread, and I saw mention of vehicles rotting away while there. As you say, stashing vehicles in a damp cave system doesn’t seem to have been the smartest choice. It seems like they had quite a collection of vehicles, so the wheel could have come from any one of them. If they did have a Lancaster wheel, where is it now and are they considered a rare or interesting object in their own right?