Amberley eyes 2021 return as Peter restoration gathers pace
A £2500 donation towards the restoration appeal of Amberley Museum’s popular 2ft gauge 0-4-0ST Peter could swell to £6250 thanks to an offer by an anonymous benefactor for match funding and the government’s Gift Aid scheme that boosts gifts by 25%.
The donation was made by the Hampshire Narrow Gauge Railway Trust (HNGRT), which was disbanded last October and has since dispersed some of its funds to 10 narrow gauge railway charities.
Trust chairman Les Munckton, who presented the £2500 cheque to museum director Valerie Mills on February 5, said: “We were building up the funds for repairs to some of our engines, but the amount we reached was a drop in the ocean as far as the sums needed. We are happy for something good to come out of our demise.”
Valerie said: “The staff and volunteers at Amberley are extremely grateful for this wonderful boost to the restoration fund for Peter from our friends at the trust, who we have worked with over many years. We are also delighted to welcome some of its volunteers to Amberley, and this will be a huge help to the group which operates our railway.”
Longstanding relationship
Amberley marketing officer Caymen O’reilly said the museum, which is on a 36 acre site based in old chalk pits near the West Sussex tourist honeypot of Arundel, had enjoyed a long relationship with the two of the trust’s former steam locomotives, Wendy and Cloister.
Both are 0-4-0STS, the former built by WG Bagnall in 1919 and Cloister by Hunslet in 1891, and each is now at the Statfold Barn Railway near Tamworth after being donated by the HNGRT following the trust’s closure.
“We are really pleased Amberley’s long relationship with these two locomotives has been acknowledged, and also that several of the trust’s members have become Amberley volunteers,” said Caymen.
The anonymous benefactor’s offer pledges matching pound for pound any monies raised up to £5000, meaning the restoration fund has the potential to raise £12,500 with Gift Aid. “So were are hoping that as many people as possible contribute through our Justgiving page, to enable Peter to delight visitors once again,”said Caymen.
The overhaul of Peter, which includes boiler repairs being carried out by Bennett Boilers of Highbridge, Somerset, is expected to cost more than £40,000. “We are hoping the boiler will be finished by late summer, and then other jobs such as the bearings, crankpins and valve gear can be attended to as funds permit,” said Valerie. “We hope to see Peter running again early next year.”
Peter was built by Bagnall in 1918 in 3ft gauge and supplied to the Ministry of Munitions. It was subsequently converted to 2ft gauge and in 1922 was sold to Cliffe Hill Granite Co in Leicestershire, whose internal railway connected with the LMS Leicester to Coalville line near Bardon Hill station.
The granite company’s railway was worked over the years by 15 locomotives, nine of which, including Peter, were built by Bagnall. The railway closed in 1948 and Peter, which is believed to have been named after the owner’s son, passed through the hands of several
owners before being bought by the Narrow Gauge Railway Society in 1954.
Collection
It arrived at Amberley in 1982 and after a lengthy restoration returned to steam in 1994, becoming a mainstay on the museum’s‘main line’which runs for half a mile and has three stations. The museum’s collection of more than 30 steam, diesel, petrol and battery-driven locomotives is the most comprehensive of its type in the UK, and represents 13 different gauges from 1ft 6in to 5ft 3in. The quarry in which the museum is based was worked from 1846 until 1969.