De Boer provides semi-permanent home for bus museum

A collection of nearly 40 historic vehicles – including iconic London Routemasters and 19th-century horse-drawn buses – is moving to a new purpose-built museum, thanks to structure specialist De Boer.

New museum structure
The company has been called on to create a new museum hall in Surrey for the London Bus Preservation Trust, a registered charity that seeks to safeguard the future of many of the UK’s most treasured vehicles.

All Weather Hall
The London Bus Museum’s Cobham Hall will see the Trust’s collection housed inside one of De Boer’s huge All Weather Halls. However, the assignment has presented some unique challenges for the structure company.

Humidity control
Despite measuring a mighty 30 metres by 80 metres, the new museum’s humidity must be maintained at a constant level – dry enough to prevent the buses’ metal bodies from rusting but humid enough to ensure wooden sections of some older vehicles don’t dry out and run the risk of crumbling away.

Perfect climate
De Boer’s UK team has employed innovative dehumidification techniques originally perfected by colleagues in Sweden to ensure the new building offers the perfect climate for its valuable contents.

Huge display space
Robert Alvarez, De Boer’s Sales Director – Commercial, explained: “With a footprint of 2,400 square metres, the new museum hall offers the Trust a huge display and workshop space but we still need to ensure conditions remain just right for the prized exhibits. The frequently challenging combination of weather and temperatures in Scandinavia mean De Boer has developed state-of-the-art systems for controlling internal humidity. We’ve now built on that experience and expertise to meet a very different challenge in the heart of Surrey.”

Stunning structure
The London Bus Museum’s Cobham Hall is a stunning structure which is due to open to the public on August 1 within the Brooklands Museum Complex – just yards from the birthplace of British motorsport and aviation. It replaces a previous base at nearby Cobham.

Ancillary services
As well as providing the main structure and supplying ancillary services such as roller-shutter doors, lighting and electrics, De Boer has even constructed the structure specifically in the British Racing Green colour famously associated with Brooklands. Despite recent development, the location is still remembered as the world’s first purpose-built racing circuit, the home of Concorde and the home of countless engineering breakthroughs.

Attention to detail
Carl Sutton, Managing Director of The Abbey Group Cambridgeshire Ltd, said: “We are the developers of the museum in conjunction with The London Bus Preservation Trust and are delighted with the efforts De Boer has made to create a brilliant new home for the museum. We had specific problems concerning humidity that were vital to address and with De Boer’s professionalism and attention to detail we were able to overcome them.”

Translucent roofsail
He continued: “One other consideration was the need to reduce the day-to-day running costs for the new facility and the translucent roofsail allows a significant amount of borrowed light into the exhibition space, reducing the Trust’s reliance on artificial lighting. The new structure looks fantastic.”

Award-winning collection
De Boer’s structure will house the largest single collection of ex-London Transport buses anywhere in the world, with vehicles dating from 1875 to 1979. Many of the exhibits have been lovingly restored – picking up a host of awards over the years.

Service vehicles
Individual exhibits include three horse-drawn vehicles from the 19th century, famous Routemaster buses from the 1950s and 60s, together with an extensive collection of single- and double-deckers spanning over 100 years of transport in London. The Trust also houses a range of service vehicles and other historic memorabilia.

Minerals storage
The versatile All Weather Hall offers a perfect setting for the collection, having already been used for purposes as diverse as minerals storage, sporting arenas... and a home for Manchester Airport’s famous Concorde exhibit.

(Images used courtesy of Peter Zabek)