Tours

Sunday afternoon

13:45   Coaches leave from outside the hotel returning c18:00

Choose either TOUR A: Sunday Steam

• Forncett Industrial Steam Museum
  We are invited to discover an award winning collection of spectacular stationary steam engines on one of their steaming days.

Price: £32

Or TOUR B: Norfolk Wind

• The Wind Energy Museum
  A collection of windmills and wind pumps from across the UK, America, and Australia, spanning the 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection boasts several unique exhibits, some representing the only surviving examples of their kind.
• Thurne Windmill
  Built in 1820 to drain the surrounding landscape, Thurne Mill was built by local millwrights England & Co. of Ludham. Following its closure in 1936, the mill was leased to the Norfolk Windmill Trust in the 1960s, and was restored to full working order in 2003.
• Thrigby Post Mill
  Thrigby mill was originally built in the 1790s for Robert Woolmer to grind wheat for his Thrigby Hall Estate. The structure, built over a two storey brick roundhouse is powered by four common sails on an iron wind shaft.

Price: £32

19:00   Two course Buffet Dinner, Presidential Suite

Talk: The Newmarket and Chesterford Railway including the Cambridge Connection by Alan Denney

Price: £30

Monday 7^th September

08:30   Coaches leave from outside the hotel returning c18:00

Choose either TOUR C: A day in Cambridge

• Cambridge Museum of Technology
  Built in 1894 as the Cheddars Lane Sewage Pumping Station, the museum contains two Hathorn Davey pumping engines (one operational), as well as a working steam winch, various other engines (steam and otherwise) and a print room with a large collection of old printing technology.
• Prickwillow Museum
  The museum tells the story of the drainage of the Fens, the history of the local area, and the individuals who ran the drainage pumps in remote locations. The museum showcases some of the region’s finest examples of restored diesel engines.
• Lunch (at the museum)
• Stretham Old Engine
  The museum is home a double-acting rotative beam engine built in 1831, which is the last complete survivor of more than a hundred similar engines that worked the drainage network all over Cambridgeshire.

Price: £60 Including lunch

Or TOUR D:  South Of Norwich

• Charles Burrell Museum
  The museum is housed in the former Paint Shop of Charles Burrell & Sons in Thetford. The collections tell the stories of the Charles Burrell Works, a company which at one time employed 350 people until the business closed in 1928, and the steam-powered engines they produced and which sold around the world.
• Barnham Nuclear Bomb Store
  In the 1950s the site housed Britain’s first atomic bomb, codenamed Blue Danube. The installation was top secret at the time, and went under the innocuous name of RAF Barnham Special Storage Site. It contains massive concrete buildings to store and maintain the bombs themselves with their plutonium cores stored separately in much smaller buildings. We will have a guided tour.
• Lunch
• Pakenham Water Mill
  The last working watermill in Suffolk, this 18th century mill is now owned by the Suffolk Building Preservation Trust. Water from Pakenham Fen collects in the mill pond to turn the 16ft iron waterwheel. In the former miller’s house next door you can see the old kitchen with its brewing vat and bread oven.
• Bressingham Steam Museum
  Bressingham’s wonderful steam collection was started by entrepreneur Alan Bloom. He opened his doors to the public more than 60 years ago to give everyone the chance to experience, enjoy and celebrate steam engineering.

Price: £60 Including lunch

19:00   Two course Buffet Dinner, Presidential Suite

Talk: History of the Leiston Garretts, and the Works by Fraser Hale, Long Shop Museum

Price: £30

Tuesday 8^th September

08:30   Coaches leave from outside the hotel returning c18:00

Choose either TOUR E: North Norfolk

• Gunton Park Sawmill
  The Gunton framesaw is probably the oldest surviving mechanical saw in Britain.  Constructed in the 1820s, it is powered by water drawn from a large lake within the park of Gunton Hall.  The massive framesaw can accept trees up to 2 ½ feet wide: the reciprocating action mimics that of the old two-man pit saw.

• Letheringsett Mill
  Letheringsett Watermill, on the River Glaven is the last remaining watermill in Norfolk to produce flour.  Built of brick in 1802 on the site of a previous mill, it has four storeys and four pairs of stones.  While there, we will have the opportunity to view from outside the nearby malting and brewery, both now converted into housing.

• Lunch (at the mill)
• Fakenham Gasworks
  The Fakenham Museum of Gas and Local History is the only surviving town gasworks in England and Wales, complete with all equipment used for the manufacture of gas from coal: retorts, condenser, washers, purifiers, meter and gasholder.  The works ceased production in 1965 and because of its rarity has been designated a Scheduled Monument. 

• Crisp MaltingsCrisp Malt, in operation since 1870, serves a diverse range of partners; from the independent small craft brewery and whisky distiller to large global beverage companies.  Within a modern complex, there is still one building where traditional floor malting is carried out.

Price: £52 including lunch

Or TOUR F: Wind, Tide & Machines

• Buttrum’s Windmill
  When Buttrum’s Mill was built in 1836, it was at the cutting edge of milling technology, a product of the famous Suffolk millwright John Whitmore. Visitors can climb the tall tower to see its elegant machinery, including four pairs of millstones.
• Woodbridge Tidemill
  The tide mill is one of only a handful in the world still producing flour on a regular basis and among the first tide mills in the country, working on the same site for over 850 years.
• Lunch
• Sutton Hoo ship recreation
  An Anglo-Saxon noble was buried within a 90 foot ship in a mound at Sutton Hoo, just across the river from Woodbridge. He was almost certainly King Raedwald, who died c.624. The ship was first discovered in 1939. The Ship’s Company was formed in 2016 to create a permanent and authentic replica of the Anglo-Saxon ship. The team is made up of professionals, volunteers and enthusiasts who are working together to fully understand the dimensions and construction methods.

• Leiston Long Shop Museum
  The Long Shop Museum was founded in 1984. It is housed in a cluster of historic buildings in the Suffolk market town of Leiston. The buildings are survivors of the original 19th century works site of Richard Garrett and Sons who were world-famous manufacturers of steam engines and other agricultural machinery. The Museum has important collections relating to farming machinery, steam traction, tools and commercial and domestic products.

Price: £52 including lunch

19:00   Two course Buffet Dinner, Presidential Suite

            Film Night – Historic films of Industrial life in East Anglia

Price: £30

Wednesday 9^th September

08:30   Coach leaves from outside the hotel returning c14:30

TOUR G: Norwich City

• New Mills, Norwich
  The purpose of the New Mills compressor station was to produce compressed air for moving sewage. This was achieved by holding sewage in 500 gallon tanks inside which were bell floats that lifted as sewage entered and compressed air from New Mills was then injected at 30psi to force the sewage to a higher point that enabled it to free run out to the Trowse works. The two Shone Ejector pumps, still in place, were the last working in the country apart from the pair under the Houses of Parliament.
• Norwich City Walk led by Dr Mary Fewster
• Lunch
• Return to hotel via Railway Station

Price: £35 including lunch

A full set of tour notes will be available at the registration desk at Conference.

Some visits are not yet confirmed so there may be changes to the itineraries and order of visits. We will keep those who make bookings informed of any changes.