Friday 24th July – Monday 31st August (Open daily)
10am -5.30pm (last admissions 4pm)
10am – 4.30pm (last admissions 3pm)
Tuesday 1st September – Sunday 1st November (Closed Fridays except for 30th October)
10am -5.30pm (last admissions 4pm)
10am – 4.30pm (last admissions 3pm)
Saturday 14th March – Thursday 23rd July (Closed Fridays except for Derbyshire school holidays).
10am -5.30pm (last admissions 4pm)
10am – 4.30pm (last admissions 3pm)
Engineering conservationist, Ray Hooley, who rescued what is now the world’s oldest working excavator from a watery grave, has been honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
It was awarded to Ray, now 94, by the National Transport Trust for his role in organising the rescue of Steam Navvy no. 306 in 1977 after it had been underwater for about 47 years….and for his 34-year custodianship afterwards during which he organised its renovation.
The steam navvy, incidentally, built in 1909 by Ruston Proctor & Co of Lincoln, is now with the Vintage Excavator Trust (VET) of Threlkeld, Cumbria, who organised further restorations with the help of a Heritage Lottery Grant after Ray donated it. It last worked at the VET open day last month.
The full story of “The Ruston in the Blue Lagoon” is told on a DVD now available in Crich Tramway Village Forge gift shop, priced at £14.95. The support item is “The Lincoln Trams,” a 17 minute documentary about the city’s trams through three eras……from horse-drawn, through the period of the unique magnetic system, to the overhead wires.
