Brooklands race track to return to use with £4.7m grant

Brooklands race track to return to use with £4.7m grant

Well, this has just about made my year and no mistake!  I doubt there'll be any more welcome [vintage] news in 2015 to trump this, and we're not even a quarter of the way through the year.

Yes, this is the overwhelmingly joyous news (which had me bouncing off the walls in excitement, I can tell you!) that the Brooklands race track in Weybridge, Surrey - first constructed in 1907 but defunct as a motor racing ciruit since the start of the Second World War in 1939, when it was largely built over and used for aircraft production - has been awarded nearly £5,000,000 in Heritage Lottery funding for use in restoring some of the track to its original 1930s condition.

Although efforts have been underway for some time now in this regard, confirmation of the Hertiage Lottery Fund's £4.7million contribution means that the projected overall costs of £7,100,000 have very nearly been met and work will begin soon.  This will involve dismantling the Grade II listed Bellman Hanger (erected by Vickers Aviation in 1940 for the production of Wellington bombers and more recently used to exhibit some of the Brooklands Museum's wonderful aeroplanes) and moving it, plus all its contents, several hundred yards where it will be rebuilt and restored to once again house many aeronautical exhibits.  Once this is done the next exciting part of the work can begin - the restoration of the start-finish straight (above).  Unseen and unused since Vickers built their production facilities over it in 1940, it will once again echo to the cheers of spectators and the roar of racing engines for the first time in 75 years.  Connected to the surviving banking at the north-east corner of the circuit it will provide the longest section of usable track since Brooklands' heyday in the 1920s and '30s.

Alas, despite the somewhat misleading B.B.C. article the entire track will not be returned to use since in the intervening decades a retail park and housing estate have been built over other sections.  Still, this is the best news that could have happened for Brooklands and will certainly return the track to as close to its pre-war glory as is possible.  And with this work, who knows what may be in store for the future?  Maybe we will see a complete circuit yet?

I last went to Brooklands in 2007 when the circuit was celebrating its centenary and what a fantastic day out that was.  Period outfits were worn and famous Brooklands racers including John Cobb's Napier-Railton and the later Napier-Bentley (above).  The Brooklands Musuem put on a fantastic event and is well-worth the visit and, although I didn't have the time or money to experience it on the day, the Mercedes-Benz World complex within the track is reputedly well worth a look-see.  Mercedes' contribution to the circuit's revival should not be overlooked and we owe them a debt of thanks for assisting the Museum in keeping the "Brooklands spirit" alive.



Personally I can't wait to see the results of the "Re-engineering of Brooklands" once it is complete, hopefully by the summer of 2016.  I'm sure it will breathe a whole new lease of life into an already fantastic place and my return there is only a matter of time.  With luck there will be some [period] special events to celebrate the reopening (already Brooklands plays host to many annual events and meetings, including the Double Twelve and 1940s Weekend - which I keep meaning to get along to) and I look forward to seeing the fruits of the restoration - Brooklands 1930s-style!

WWII carrier pigeon message discovered in Surrey chimney

WWII carrier pigeon message discovered in Surrey chimney

Here's a corking story of the kind that is so beloved of this blogger and which we have had little of recently - a remarkable historical find with an edge of oddness about it.

Plenty of interesting, long-forgotten pieces of the past can be discovered during renovation work on old buildings and nesting birds are often a problem for those houses that still have a fireplace with a chimney.  Here, however, the two have combined to create this amazing discovery - the skeletal remains of a Second World War carrier pigeon complete with leg capsule and, more importantly, the original message still contained within! 

source
Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire

The whole story is almost unbelievable in the way it has unfolded and it isn't complete yet.  The message, sent by an RAF sergeant from still-occupied Normandy in the early stages of D-Day and probably intended for Bletchley Park - a mere 80 miles from where the message was eventually discovered - or Field-Marshal Montgomery's London headquarters in St Paul's School, Barnes, is unusual not only for remaining attached to a dead pigeon's leg undiscovered (and undelivered) for over 60 years but for being in code when the majority of messages sent back from the D-Day operation were not.  This implies that the contents were of major importance and highly secret.

Quest to crack secrets of lost D-Day pigeon

Unfortunately no-one seems to know the code that was used and there are no extant records that reveal the cipher employed by this Sergeant W. Stot.  Unless the modern-day codebreakers at GCHQ in Cheltenham, to whom the message has been handed, can use their skills to decode this mysterious message the information it contains will likely remain unknown.  Would it have had an important bearing on the course of the war?  Hopefully GCHQ can tell us, but either way it is a fantastic tale.