Meetings Are Held

in the

 United Reform Church

(Opposite The Police Station)

38

The Oxford Bus and Morris Museums

3/21/2006

Mick Freeman

We were entertained with a brief history of the creation of the oxford Bus Museum and the Morris Museum which was illustrated later by a slide show of both the progress of the progress of the development of the museum but of the preservation of the collection of buses.

The beginings were in 1966 when a group of enthusiasts talked of preserving historic buses. In 1968 the Oxford Bus Preservation Society bought a bus and set about restoring it. Over the following years the society worked as a loose association of workers resuing buses but without any fixed location and their collection scattered among a number of sites.

In 1982 the old railway yard at Long Hanborough became the new, single, home of the buses. Over the next few years there was a gradual build up of the collection and whenthe opportunity to buy the land was presented the society took the gamble and applied for Lottery money to develop a properly organised museum.

In an attempt to get all the main exhibits under cover another lottery bid was made. The grant was approved but with the proviso that included in the set-up was a memorial to Lord Nuffield. With the addition of cars and the collection of memorabilia which had decorated the Longwall Restaurant at Cowley the Morris Museum was established..

There are now plans possibly create a fire engine museum to the site.

Of course, the work of preservation and restoration is still the core of enterprise and the work on a double decker bus can be about two years.

Mike explained that he museum had regular school groups visiting on wednesdays as well as have general public days at the weekends. The work is all done by volunteers with no paid workers.