Boulton Paul Heritage centre (staffordshire UK) faces closure after 20 years.

[Spilz]

Hi guys,



Firstly, I will be honest, I have joined this forum purely for this cause, hopefully if you have the time to read you will appreciate that this is a good cause.

My name is Sam Spilsbury, and I'm doing my utmost, primarily, to stop the last 20 years of my Grandads life Jack Holmes, (amongst other peoples) being for nothing.

My Grandad, Jack Holmes Has been Chief Engineer of A heritage Centre that opened 20 years ago after the official closure of Dowty Boulton Paul in Wolverhampton UK. I'm sure a lot of you will know this is where the famous Defiant amongst other aeroplanes, was built.

The centre has survived purely on subscription and donations as a registered charity and was holding around 4 open days per year.

At the beginning of the associations life, the only items from the old firm were in other museums, the only defiant was in Hendon, The Balliol at cosford, and the little P111 Delta wing research aircraft was at coventry. The association began a program of building replicas of the best known of the companies products. This began with the P6 bi-plane of 1918, followed by the Defiant and the Balliol of 1946, and the nose portion and gun turret of the Overstrand medium bomber of the early 1930's.

There is a lot more in the collection including plate glass negatives going back to 1915 at the commencement of aircraft manufacture at Boulton and Paul norwich.

Now the company who own the area GE AVIATION, have put the finger down and given Moog aviation 2 years to relocate.
This notice is to December next year! so there is still time to at least try and do something about it.

Here's the hard part, The association dont know at this point what will happen to the collection, but its looking like scrappage at the moment.

I'm sure you will agree this is digusting, I have been to the site many times, and its not like it even takes up a massive amount of space for what it is. This is a big part of aviation history and i'm not willing to let it go without doing all I can to stop it.

With facebook being a powerful tool nowadays I have created a page to get my message accross.

I have included a link to the page, and will pop back from time to time to copy any comments over to the page.

Save The Boulton Paul Association Heritage Centre | Facebook

Thankyou for your time.

Sam Spilsbury (23)

[Airframes]

Heck! Really sorry to hear this. I've been wanting to get down to see the defiant replica fro some time, and only live about a 90 minute drive away - just disability and finances delaying things.
I can't offer any financial help, but perhaps talk to Cosford, Midlands Air Museum or Newark Air Museum? They are probably the closest facilities and maybe they would be able, and happy, to provide room and display facilities?
It would mean losing total independence, but at least the collection would be intact.

[Spilz]

Thanks for your reply!

as far as I know nowhere has room for the aircrafts, but I am going to try myself to win them over.

[nuuumannn]

Hi Sam, good luck with your ventures to get the BP Heritage Centre relocated; it will be a sad loss if it has to close, since you guys have put so much time and effort in there. What's been achieved is remarkable. It would be terrific if the RAF Museum could come on board (speak to Andy Simpson in the Aircraft and Exhibits Department at Hendon; he's fond of all things BP) and provide the centre's items a home at Cosford, perhaps like the way Shuttleworth does with the Airship Heritage Trust that used to be at Cardington before it closed.

[Wayne Little]

hello and welcome.....hope you are successful in your quest to keep this project alive and kicking!!