The National Cycle Museum is a national museum dedicated to

cycling in the United Kingdom Cycling in the United Kingdom has a long history, since the earliest days of the bicycle, and after a decline in the mid-20th century has been undergoing a resurgence in recent decades. History John Kemp Starley, a 19th-century English invento ...

and is based in

Llandrindod Wells Llandrindod Wells (, ; cy, Llandrindod, /ɬanˈdɾindɔd/ "Trinity Parish"), sometimes known colloquially as Llandod, is a town and community in Powys, within the historic boundaries of Radnorshire, Wales. It serves as the seat of Powys ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. A collection of bicycles through the ages established in 1981 in premises on the estate of Belton House, near Grantham. After the house was donated to the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

the museum was without premises until a new location at Lincoln was offered. James Maynard, Edward Skeet and Anthony Pickering took on the running of the museum after the originator and curator, Raymond Fixter died. After several successful years in Lincoln, the City of Lincoln council ceased sponsorship, and new premises were sought. In 1997 the Welsh Tourist board saw the opportunity of combining three collections (Tom Norton, David Higman and the National Cycle Museum) and offered premises in Llandrindod Wells, Powys. The museum contains over 260 bicycles from an 1818 hobby-horse to the latest carbon-fibre designs, including a large collection of

penny-farthing The penny-farthing, also known as a high wheel, high wheeler or ordinary, is an early type of bicycle. It was popular in the 1870s and 1880s, with its large front wheel providing high speeds (owing to its travelling a large distance for every r ...

s and solid-tyred safety bicycles, and cycling books, accessories and paraphernalia. The building and site was known as The Automobile Palace, a project of bicycle shop owner Tom Norton, who bought the site in 1906 for his expanding business. The building was initially completed in 1911 in an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style and then tripled in size, to the same standard, in 1919. It has received a Grade II*

heritage listing This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and man-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In many ...

, being "an exceptionally early grid-pattern steel-framed building surviving largely unaltered".

References

External links

{{coord, 52.2386, -3.3741, display=title} Llandrindod Wells History of cycling Museums established in 1997 Museums in Powys Transport museums in Wales Cycling museums and halls of fame Grade II* listed buildings in Powys 1997 establishments in Wales National museums of the United Kingdom