TRANSPORT IN MILTON KEYNES

Transport has been a major influence on the development of the Milton Keynes area for thousands of years. 

The decision to build the new city that became Milton Keynes was taken in part because of the location and availability of existing road, rail and waterway transport links.

The Museum's Hall of Transport contains items associated with roads, railways and canals to explain why the area's position has made it a 'crossroads' through the ages. 

It is one of the newest buildings on the site, built specifically to house the Museum's large collection of transport items.

WHAT'S ON DISPLAY

The exhibits in the Hall of Transport cover all sorts of transport. Most of the exhibits were used and/or made locally. Items or sections on show include:

• Wolverton and Stony Stratford Tram
• Wolverton Works carriage section
• Buckingham Co-Op Delivery lorry
• Ackroyd Stuart engine
• Austin Seven motor car (under restoration)
• Gypsy caravan
• Canal narrowboat
• bicycles
• motor cycles
• Wolverton Works display
• Sciences and Arts Institute items
• horse drawn vehicles
• hand carts

AT THE CROSSROADS!

The area that is now Milton Keynes has always been at the centre of things:

• The Roman 'Watling Street' (now known as the A5) that linked London with the Welsh port of Holyhead is less than a kilometre from the museum. The road remains an important route to this day.

• The Grand Union Canal was the principal form of communication between London and Birmingham during the late 18th and early 19th centuries also passes less than a kilometre from the museum. The meeting to form the company that built the canal was held in 'The Bull' public house in Stony Stratford.

• The London to Birmingham main line railway, built in the first half of the 19th century, passes through what is now Milton Keynes and close to the museum. Its principal engineering facility was at Wolverton Works.

• The M1, Britain's first long distance motorway, was built in the 1950s between London and the north of England. It has two junctions in Milton Keynes.

• The UK's last steam hauled tram operated between Wolverton and Stony Stratford around 100 years ago. 

• The main Oxford to Cambridge railway crossed the London to Birmingham main line at Bletchley. This was one of the main reasons why the British Government decided to locate its secret Station X in the town during the Second World War.

Many of these routes passed through the area because of its central location and position mid way between London and Birmingham, England's two largest cities. This unique location was one of the main reasons for developing the area into the new city of Milton Keynes in the 1960s.