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Bressingham steam and gardens
Bressingham Steam & Gardens is a steam museum and gardens located at Bressingham (adjacent to a Wyevale garden centre), west of Diss in Norfolk, England. The site has several narrow gauge rail lines and a number of types of steam engines and vehicles in its collection and is also the home of the national Dad's Army exhibition.
Contents
- Bressingham steam and gardens
- The Gardens
- The Narrow Gauge Lines
- The Garden Railway
- The Nursery Railway
- The Waveney Valley Railway
- Standard gauge steam locomotives
- Steam vehicles
- Steam Engines Portable and others
- Steam Rollers
- Steam Tractors Traction
- Dads Army Collection
- References
The Gardens
The gardens were established by Alan Bloom MBE at Bressingham Hall. He moved to Bressingham in 1946, after selling his previous 36-acre (15 ha) site at Oakington in Cambridgeshire to raise the capital for the 220 acres (89 ha) in Norfolk, where he hoped to be both a farmer and a nurseryman. He was a plant expert of international renown, particularly in the field of hardy perennials. He laid out the Dell garden with its well-known island beds. His son, Adrian Bloom, laid out the Foggy Bottom garden.
Much of the site is given over to commercial horticulture. There is a garden centre on the site, trading as Blooms of Bressingham, although the nurseries themselves are not open to the public. Bressingham Gardens and Steam Museum is an independent charitable trust. Alan Bloom had wanted to create his own trust in 1967, to ensure that the collection would not be disbursed to pay for death duties, but the laws of the time made this difficult, and after five years of negotiation, the museum was nearly handed over to the Transport Trust. However, the legislation governing private museums was relaxed just before the handover in 1971, and Bloom was able to create his own Trust and thus retain control of it because the collection was of historical and educational importance.
The Narrow Gauge Lines
There are three railway lines which take visitors around the gardens:
The Garden Railway
10 1⁄4 in (260 mm) gauge miniature railway. Runs through the Dell Garden, giving passengers good views of the various plants. The railway's passenger trains are operated by steam locomotive Alan Bloom, which was constructed along with the railway.
The Nursery Railway
2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge railway. The Nursery Railway was the first railway to be completed at Bressingham, first opening in 1968. The railway is 2.5 miles in length and crosses the Waveney Valley Railway, running parallel to it for a short distance. It also runs through meadows and passes the now defunct plant nurseries.
Locomotives:
The Waveney Valley Railway
15 in (381 mm) gauge miniature railway. The line was first opened in 1973 and is 1.5 miles in length. It crosses the Nursery Railway and also runs parallel to the 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge line for a time.
Locomotives:
During 2013, a circular track of dual 7 1⁄4 in (184 mm) gauge and 5 in (127 mm) gauge was under construction. Once completed, there will be a total of six different gauges at Bressingham.
Standard gauge steam locomotives
Steam vehicles
A variety of steam vehicles are in the collection.
Steam Engines Portable and others
Steam Rollers
Steam Tractors / Traction
Dad's Army Collection
The museum is the home of the national Dad's Army collection of vintage vehicles. These are located on a reconstruction of the High Street in the fictional Walmington-on-Sea beside the butcher's shop of Lance-Corporal Jones, Private Frazer's undertaker's shop and Captain Mainwaring's bank office.
The vehicles include Jones' van and the dust cart from the 1971 film, Mainwaring's staff car used in the episode The Making of Private Pike, the vintage fire engine used in Brain Versus Brawn and the steamroller 'Boxer' and traction engine 'Bertha' which appeared in other episodes.