Unsung Hero helps the Kerr Stuart 4415 Team

After a long period of negotiations, the Leeds Industrial Museum at Armley Mills have agreed to loan us a Barford & Perkins diesel road roller. 

My thanks to Rob Bishop for the text and allowing me to lift the pictures from ” Lovely Bertha and Friends” Website so I could share it with the readers.

“Readers of this might wonder what the Kerr Stuart project wants a road roller for?  The engine, of course!  The engine in the roller is a rare McLaren Benz example, and having access to it will allow us to gain understanding and measure up bits to make new parts for our own engine.  

The site at Armley Mills is difficult to access, and we had a few issues in trying to organise getting the roller out.  However, we set a date for the 18th, and Dave Walker set off from home at 04:00 with his Foden lorry and flat bed trailer. 

He arrived at Armley at 07:45.  Matthew Wolstenholme and I set off at 06:00 in one of the FR Co vans with a load of other kit needed for the move.  Nick Corley also joined us at Armley Mills.  After having a site induction, and going over the risk assessment and method statement, we started unloading our equipment to tackle the task in hand.  The roller was in the back of a shed, and was surrounded by a lot of other big heavy items from the museum collection.   Dave had brought his Manitou on the lorry, and this made quick work of emptying the shed so we could get to the roller. 

The roller is half dismantled, and couldn’t be put back together due to some of the parts being damaged, so it had to be carried out in bits.  Again, this is something we couldn’t have done without the Manitou. 

Once the roller was safely removed from the museum building, we put all the other bits back inside, and then dragged the roller up to the museum car park, where there was space to load it onto the truck. 

With the lorry loaded, we set off on the long journey back to Minffordd.  

The roller was unloaded in the morning on the 19th, and is now in the goods shed in Minffordd yard.  We will be taking a look at the engine at our next working party.  We’d like to thank Leeds Museums and Galleries for the loan of the roller, Dave Walker for providing the transport, Paul Lewin for allowing us to use the company van, Tony Williams and Dylan Ham for allowing us to take equipment from Boston Lodge, and Jules Evans for organising insurance for the move.  Finally we’d like to thank all the 4415 volunteers who worked to make this move happen”.

This was a volunteer project that took great negotiating and organisational skills to get it to work – well done to the team for such an amazing success!