I was brought up in Sutton Coldfield in the 50s and I have a distant memory of seeing stacks of aircraft piled up in the distance, visible from our garden. For years, I’ve assumed this was no memory but a dream I must have had as a toddler…until a couple of days ago when I showed my elder brother pictures of the Battle of Britain flight I’d taken at the Chatsworth Rally Show (I’m a rally photographer) and he piped up ‘I’ve been in one of those’, referring to the Lancaster. He, and subsequently my other brother, told me how as kids, they used to walk down to Minworth to see piles of scrapped planes. They remember an entire Lancaster front end,cockpit and forward fuselage which they had to squeeze through to get to the flight deck and then sitting in the mid fuselage turret. They reckon this was about 56-57 so no wonder I have little memory of it as I was 4/5 while they were in their early teens.
It can’t be a coincidence that Castle Bromwich airfield was close by and Wikipedia tells me it was closed in 1958. So did all these planes come from there as it was cleared in the couple of years before closing?
Can someone direct me to any photos? I’d love to get hold of some and to get some details from you guys in the know, of what aircraft were there. Many thanks.
By: ROY KESTERTON - 21st August 2015 at 19:45
Many thanks young sir
I will try and make the effort to list my logs at Minworth Metals, I made fourteen visits in total from 10.12.55 until 4.11.61. My log books go back until 1954.
By: avion ancien - 21st August 2015 at 18:16
Your note keeping sounds to be meticulous, Roy. Thus I’m looking forward to seeing your logs when you get around to posting them.
By: ROY KESTERTON - 21st August 2015 at 17:55
Hello
All I remember about the Short Sealand was a small section of the fuselage and the wings, that was on the 4.11.61. Most of the photos above were taken on the 15.3.58, and the Fairey Firefly U8 fuselage was WP351 taken on the 2.2.58.
By: Carpetbagger - 21st August 2015 at 14:35
I think I’m going to cry…:apologetic:
By: Trolly Aux - 21st August 2015 at 09:54
Yes, same can be said for Hanningfield metals in some ways
By: heli1 - 21st August 2015 at 07:53
Oh for a time machine !
By: Arabella-Cox - 21st August 2015 at 06:41
Brilliant pics – Thank you for posting them.
By: longshot - 21st August 2015 at 00:31
Uploading for ROY KESTERTON…Minworth scrapyard
Do you have any memories/notes on the Sealand ,Roy…don’t think it’s in the pics?
By: Arabella-Cox - 20th August 2015 at 15:24
I am really struggling with the Short Sealand sighting. It was broken up in Belfast in April 1955, and was not at Minworth 31July59 or 28Feb60. Can you (or anybody) remember how much of it there was.
Prentice G-APIF(VS652) the fuselage went from Croydon to Minworth, however the wings moved with Vendair to biggin Hill.
Picture would be lovely – but we were all cash strapped in those days.
Ian
By: ROY KESTERTON - 19th August 2015 at 22:24
Yes the Short Sealand was G-AIVX, I seen it there on 4.11.61.
By: ROY KESTERTON - 19th August 2015 at 21:41
Greetings also to you, I will post them as soon as I get used to the website. Not very clever with this latest technology.
By: avion ancien - 19th August 2015 at 21:22
Greetings, Roy. I’m sure many would be interested to read your logs and see your photos if you posted them here. Oh, and give my regards to Solihull. It’s many a year since I left Olton to live in France!
By: ROY KESTERTON - 19th August 2015 at 19:40
Yes I used to do the same thing travelling from Tile Cross on my bike. I actually made a hole under the fence, and crawled in once the chap who was patrolling the site had done his rounds.
By: ROY KESTERTON - 19th August 2015 at 19:35
I visited this scrap yard on a regular basis from 1958 and have logs of my visits, and also about six to eight b/w photos.
By: avion ancien - 7th November 2014 at 17:35
Ooh, you naughty lad. Still, I don’t think that the old bill will prosecute fifty odd years later!
By: woody12 - 7th November 2014 at 16:11
We used to bike it to Minworth Metals from Sutton Coldfield 58-60 when i was a lad of 15,enter through a hole in the fence there were what seemed like hundreds of ww11 planes, we would remove the compasses and other bits and sell them at school.
By: viscount - 9th February 2012 at 14:37
Been following this thread as a matter of interest and note the references to the Merseyside Group of Aviation Enthusiasts and the early ‘Wrecks and Relics’ editions. I have a near complete collection of their ‘Merseyside Aeronews’ and ‘Flypast’ magazines,and while looking through researching another topic noticed a visit report to Minworth Metals. No photos in the days of Gestenter reproduction, but the aircraft seen may be of interest in view of the posts above regarding a Prentice.
A trip report to the National Air Races 12th July 1958 seems to have called-in at Minworth Metals and Seighford on the way home. Noted at Minworth Metals:
VW278 Meteor F.4 ex 611 Sqn
VW416 Meteor T.7 ex L/610 ex F/56 Sqn
VW428 Meteor T,7
WA655 Meteor T.7
7132M Meteor F.8, No.64 Sqn badge
7364M Prentice, from Kirkham
VS652 Prentice – Vendair’s G-APIF
WB435 Firefly Mk.5
WD916 Firefly Mk.6
XF930 Balliol T.2
TF960 Sea Fury
WA487 Attacker F.1
WZ278 Attacker FB.2
WK121 Canberra
This puts VS562/(G-APIF) at Minworth earlier than the speculation in earlier posts.
Todays North West Air News website and forum is a direct descendant of the late 50s Merseyside groups. It worries me that while information related 50 years ago can still be found, albeit in a quite obscure source -will todays information on the web now still be available for research in 2060? Against that uncertainty though is a desire to digitise the back-issues and so make them available to a wider research audience in the near future.
By: alertken - 9th February 2012 at 09:27
Vendair had acquired one of the very few Prentii that had not been in the packages “won” by Freddie Laker. VS652 was trucked to Croydon late-1957, found to be too painful, dumped outside as VS, not even daubed G-APIF, roaded to Minworth and scrapped there 1960. In August 1962 I vacuumed up from the Merseyside Group a comprehensive brief on scrapyards and had great pleasure trawling them. Minworth was not on their list.
By: Consul - 8th February 2012 at 20:22
I’ve now checked my W&R “library”. The 3rd edition contained a section specifically listing of scrapyards that at that time dealt with aircraft and mentioned that the Minworth yard had already closed.
It was therefore still going in 1961 but had been cleared before 1968.
By: Mally - 8th February 2012 at 19:21
Banupa. I expect that the Prentice you refer to was ‘Pretty Louise’
G-AOPL which was owned by Tom Newman. He had it from 1961 to 1963.
I remember going to Southend in it.
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February 6, 2012 at 4:32 pm