National Cycle Collection facts for kids
The National Cycle Museum (Welsh: Casgliad beicio cenedlaethol) for the UK is a collection of bicycles through the ages established in 1981 in premises on the estate of Belton House, near Grantham. After the National Trust were gifted the house the museum was without premises until a new location at Lincoln was offered. Mr James Maynard, Edward Skeet and Anthony Pickering took on the running of the museum after the originator and curator, Raymond Fixter died. After a highly successful number Of 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 which to this day are located in Llandrindod Wells, [[Wales] Containing around 250 bicycles from 1818 to 2018, including a large collection of penny-farthings and solid-tyred safety bicycles, as well as 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 style and then tripled in size, to the same standard, in 1919. It has received a Grade II* heritage listing, being "an exceptionally early grid-pattern steel-framed building surviving largely unaltered".
