Beaulieu motor museum to move after 50 years
The award-winning National Motor Museum, founded by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu in the grounds of his stately New Forest home more than half a century ago, is to move, the museum has announced.
Lord Beaulieu, who died in 2015 aged 88, as a fanatical collector of classic motor cars who was at the forefront of the movement for celebrating industrial archaeology. He started in 1952 with five vehicles arrayed in the forecourt of his home, Palace House, then built a purpose-built museum in the grounds where there are now more than 270 cars, including the earliest motorised carriages, speed record breakers and famous cars, and 1.9m associated objects in the collection.
No new site has yet been identified and the lease has four years to run. It was Museum of the Year in 1974.
The National Motor Museum Trust, of which the present Lord Montagu is president, has announced that it was nearing the end of its lease and had begun the process of “finding a transformational new home”. It has approximately 350,000 visitors a year.
The trust statement said discussions with the Montagu family over the last two years had concluded that the move was necessary to "reimagine and reinvigorate" the museum.
It said its long-term plans included expanding its community engagement and developing a training centre for heritage engineering apprenticeships. “We are sad that the National Motor Museum will be leaving Beaulieu” said trust chairman Robert MacGregor, “but are at the same time very excited about this once in a generation opportunity to transform the museum for the future".
Lord Montagu said the museum had "expanded beyond what anyone at the time envisaged" and that he would continue to "support" the trust. "The charity's long-term aims will now stand the best chance of being achieved if it can be based in a new home."
Beaulieu would continue to operate a motor museum in the future, and a significant number of vehicles will remain at Beaulieu.