The revamped Bury Transport Museum is across the road from Bolton Street, one of six stations on the East Lancashire Railway, a 12-mile heritage line running along the edge of Greater Manchester.
On the day I visited, the station was alive with the evocative sounds of steam locomotives and busy with families travelling up and down the line. The noise and activity rapidly faded as I descended the steep path to the museum and, stepping inside the building, you cannot help but feel insulated from the working railway close by.
The museum is housed in the Grade II-listed Castlecroft Goods Warehouse built in 1848. Almost £3m has been spent on refurbishing the warehouse and creating a museum within it.
Walking into the exhibition, there is little doubt that the architectural conversion is of the highest quality. The building retains much of its original character, with its wooden-trussed roof supported by elegant, cast-iron columns.
The whitewashed walls, now rather cleaner than in its railway days, serve as a crisp backdrop to the displays, and also highlight the tall, sliding doors originally used to allow goods to be loaded and unloaded at the warehouse.
Visitors enter through a reception area created at the front of the building, and then pass through a set of glass doors into the heart of the displays. Faced with an array of buses and other road vehicles, I searched in vain for an introduction to the gallery.
Its website notes that the museum tells the story of transport in the north-west, as well as the history of the shed and the goods it handled, but this was not immediately obvious in the gallery.
But venturing further inside, many of the large exhibits do reflect the history of transport in the region, with buses from Bolton and Rawtenstall on show.
All shapes and sizes
The central bay of the museum is dominated by a traditional display of transport hardware. Apart from the buses already mentioned, there is also a fire engine, a Scammell mechanical horse, traction engines, vans and other commercial vehicles.
The rails originally laid in the cobbled floor of the warehouse in the steam era are now occupied by railway wagons, loaded with examples of the kind of goods handled in the building during its heyday.
There is little interpretation in this space, but each large exhibit is described by a graphic fixed to a rather ugly, tubular frame. These feature key questions that visitors might be interested in, including obvious ones such as when and why the vehicle was built.
But some of the graphic panels also ask more interesting questions about the objects in a transport museum context such as: “How has it been restored?”; and “What is special about it?”.
Although two video projectors play archive film on one wall of the gallery, the film is silent, making the museum very quiet – some judicious use of sound effects would help to make the gallery livelier.
On the back wall is an impressive array of British Railways station signs, mostly from the north-west. Signs of this type are often displayed in railway and transport museums like metal wallpaper, but here, visitors can access information about each one using a computer database that gives the location of the station and, in many cases, a photograph.
As a result, you can find out more about the charmingly named stations at Besses o’th’ Barn and Church & Oswaldtwistle.
Two mezzanine floors on each side of the building house interactive displays that contrast strongly with the traditional exhibition of large objects. The bigger of the two floors focuses mainly on how the building was operated and the goods handled there.
The highlight is a professional video filmed in the warehouse before its conversion to a museum. Using actors and volunteers from the heritage railway, it vividly brings to life the working conditions and operating practices of a busy goods depot.
A world view
Elsewhere, an interactive display challenges visitors to match goods handled in the warehouse with a world map, allowing them to discover the places goods were sent to and from. A nearby figure of a female mill worker sitting on a bench is a visual prompt to tell the story of the “Wakes Week” holidays in the north-west.
A large area full of replica period clothes and hats has been provided to allow visitors, particularly children, to dress up. A reconstructed period office at the end of the platform cleverly includes copies of railway paperwork that visitors can pick up and read.
Showcases display the originals, which include an East Lancashire excursion handbill from 1852. A case in the office shows small objects such as lamps and other memorabilia – the display would benefit from more exhibits of this kind to create a contrast with the large objects that dominate elsewhere.
The other mezzanine is aimed squarely at children. It features a series of excellent interactive exhibits on railway and scientific themes including bridge building, lifting and forces, speed and how a steam locomotive works.
Only one is computer based, with the others hands-on exhibits aimed at a non-specialist audience, although I am still not sure that children (or some adults) would understand the technical description of the how a steam locomotive works.
The mezzanine displays provide a welcome balance to the exhibition’s large objects, ensuring that the museum caters for more than just transport enthusiasts. Better integration with the preserved railway across the road, and more sound and activity within the displays, will bring the museum the success it deserves.
Tim Bryan is the head of collections and interpretation at the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon
- Cost £3m
- Main funders Heritage Lottery Fund (£1.6m), Northwest Regional Development Agency, Biffaward, PEC, Bury Metropolitan Borough Council, East Lancashire Light Railway Company, East Lancashire Railway Preservation Society
- Exhibition design Headland Design
- Main contractor Irwins
