Description
Tram, English Electric car built 1921, at Dick Kerr works, Preston, on Peckham Pendulum truck; narrow gauge 3ft 6in. Supplied to the Cheltenham & District Light Railway Company in 1921 as one of three new cars, no. 21 (the other two were nos 22 and 23). No. 21 remained in service until the system closed on Wednesday 31 December 1930. Most of the Cheltenham cars were scrapped, but the body of no. 21 was sold by the company c.1932 to the Boote family and it was moved to their small holding at Huntscot Farm, off Kingsditch Lane, on the corner of what is now Running's Road. The car was used primarily for storing crates used for the transport of the family's produce. The new owners erected a pitched corrugated metal roof above the car's top deck; it was this structure which ensured the car's long term future. It stood on sleepers at Hunscot Farm. The Cheltenham Tramcar No. 21 Group was set up in 1961 to rescue and preserve the tram. The Group were expecting the tram to be donated to them by Mr Boote but he died before this could take place. In September 1961 Mrs G. Boote was paid £38 for replacing the storage provided by the tram, and it passed into the possession of the Group on 3 September 1961. Initial restoration work was begun in situ. On 14 April 1962 the tram was removed, by Cheltenham Plant Hire Ltd, using a crane and a low-loader, to the Cheltenham Corporation Leckhampton Depot in Moorend Road, at the invitation of the Borough Surveyor and Engineer, Mr W.E. Bird. The journey was a three mile route via Hester's Way Estate, Gloucester and Lansdown Roads, Bath Road and Leckhampton Road. The work of restoring the tram was carried out by the Group until early 1965, when they were informed that the Depot was being cleared and sold (later occupied by an Ambulance Station). At this point (Tram News No. 20, 17/03/1965) they had reached (or passed) the two-thirds point of body restoration and partly completed the electrical refit; Tram News No.20 (17 March 1965) has a piece about the electrics of the tram. News No. 21 (31 July 1965) includes photos of the restored tram on truck and track at Crich.
On Saturday 10 July 1965, after loading, the tram was paraded through Cheltenham and then spent the night at Elliots's Yard, Bouncers Lane. On Sunday 11 July the tram, on a standard gauge truck (4ft 8 1/2in), was removed to the National Tram Museum at Crich. It was hoped that 21 would be able to operate at Crich, but this never happened; Crich had other open top cars which were standard gauge and operated. In 1968 there was the suggestion of a separate dual gauge line for tram 21 and Howth 10, but this was never built. In autumn 1968 the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Co. Ltd were interested in building a truck for 21 as their archives included the exact drawings used to build the Cheltenham tramcars in 1901; it would be an apprentices' exercise. On 2 May 1981 the Tramway Museum Society AGM approved the transfer of ownership of tram 21 from the Society to Bournemouth Borough Council. 21 was on a standard gauge truck bought by the 21 Group when she was first at Crich but this was later removed by the TMS for use under another car body.The link between Bournemouth and tram 21 was Graham Teasdill, who had worked at CAGM in the early 1960s and was a founder member of 21 Tram Group in Cheltenham, and who, from September 1966, was Curator at Bournemouth, and from 1968, built up a Transport Museum there.On 25 November 1981 tram 21 arrived at the Bournemouth Transport Museum at Mallard Road (Bus) Depot. At Bournemouth tram 21 could be completely restored and put on a narrow gauge truck (3ft 6in). Both Cheltenham and Bournemouth operated on 3ft 6in gauge - there were hopes that arrangements would be made for the construction of a working narrow gauge at Bournemouth by the mid-1980s, hopefully on the Littledown Estate (to be the Tramway Museum of the West Country). In 1981 tram 21 was believed to be the only remaining preserved and restored survivor of all the West Country tramcars except for Poole No.6 and the four Bournemouth cars, Nos. 13. 42, 71/72 and 85, already included in Bournemouth Transport Museum, and the ones at Seaton, Devon, which have been substantially converted.CAGM inspected the tram at Bournemouth on 11 Oct 1985, with other SW representatives. Restoration was hoped to begin in the financial year 1986-87. In early May 1989, Simon Olding, now Head of Museum Services and not a bus expert, commissioned a report on the Transport Museum (Report on the Future of the Bournemouth Transport Museum by Michael E. Ware, September 1989). In 1968 the Bournemouth Passenger Transport Association was set up to preserve Bournemouth passenger transport vehicles; their first bus was bought in 1969, and gradually a collection was built up. The majority of the exhibits are owned by BPTA and are on loan to BMS, plus vehicles on loan from other organisations. Most of the work in connection with this colln has been done by Vyvyan Jeffery (a member of Cheltenham 21 Tram Group) and the BPTA; the former director (G. Teasdill) was a bus expert. There were still plans for a transport museum at Littledown, which should include running a working transport system; public visits to the Mallard Road Depot should be discontinued (visitor experience is poor). The new museum should include local history as well as buses. Tram 21 is described as having no place in Bournemouth if the tramway is to be purely Bournemouth in origin; its only connection is that it just happened to be the right gauge, a group of enthusiasts then restored it to good looking order; an independent consultant has told BPTA the work was not done well and subsequent bad storage has taken 21 back to a bad state; it was recommended that it should be offered back to the TMS; if they can't accept it back then their advice should be sought as to its future.CAGM expressed its interest in being considered as a possible new home for tram 21 with the hope of displaying it in the future; so storage space would have to found for it in the first instance (letter dated 29/12/1989). However it took some time to arrange for the transfer of ownership, and the transport of the tram to Cheltenham. A Deed of Gift was made 11 November 1991 between Bournemouth Borough Council, Cheltenham Borough Council and the The Tramway Museum Society of the National Tramway Museum, Crich, Matlock, Derby (who retained the right to re-acquire the tram if Cheltenham wished to dispose of it in the future). The tram, and its trailer, was transported by Elliott Transport, Talland House, Escrick, York, from Bournemouth to Cheltenham.The file on tram 21 at Bournemouth Museum was transferred to CAGM. There is a photocopied newscutting (23/03/1992) from the Evening Echo, Bournemouth, showing the inside of the tram, shortly after its arrival in Bournemouth in 1981, and one of it at Bournemouth Transport Museum at the bus depot in Mallard Road, on the year's first open day. The long-term plan was to have it restored as a static exhibit in an enlarged Local History Gallery, which was planned for when CAGM was able to move into premises currently occupied by Cheltenham Library - which depended on when Phase 2 of the new Cheltenham Library was to be built (letter dated 19 Aug 1992).
