This article could quite easily just be telling you how incredible Bicton Park Botanical Gardens is as a location for a vintage show, but I promise there will be plenty of engine talk! The gardens, that date back to the 18th century, hosted their annual Fathers Day weekend, the grounds provides some of the most dramatic backdrops you’ll likely see! Miniature steam, vintage tractors, military vehicles and collections were found under various rare pines and massive redwoods.
Stationary engines, classic cars and bikes were located in the Italian Garden, a three tier section of the grounds with a perfectly prepared lawn, its own collection of intriguing plant life, an incredibly picturesque reflecting pool and surrounding moat. The moat serving as a play area for the model boat clubs who had also joined us!
Alright alright, I’ll talk about the engines. I’d like to start by thanking David Lacey for organising so much of this great event and for getting a great selection of engines in for the public to enjoy! David himself had brought along one of his faithful Petter Atomics, a pair of Moteur-Japy’s, (Models 12E and 13E) and a twin Cylinder Wisconsin with dynamo.
With a grand total of 43 engines, both the engine enthusiast and curious visitor were spoilt with a varied mix of unusual, rare and wonderful machines. For this article I’m going to split them by vertical and horizontal, any engines not mentioned will be found in the Youtube video attached at the bottom!
Horizontal power had quite an impressive showing of lesser seen makes and models, The biggest of which was the recently restored ‘Invincible’ engine, looking and running like the past 100+ years hadn’t happened. On the opposite side of the pool Hornsby Portable No. 40391 ran like clockwork on top of its horse drawn trolley. Others included a Canadian built Julien, a splendidly bright Lorenz, American National with direct drive water pump, A Crossley JJ, A Gardner 1F with some kind of rubber duck infestation and a tidy 1 1/2HP Sta-Rite engine.
As for vertical, the first two I’m going to mention are inverted! Both engines are prime examples of how good many engine owners are at restoring these very rare bits of kit. In superb red was a Webster Mfg. Co engine dating from 1899, Older still was the 1892 Crossley Otto Patent gas engine. They were accompanied by two models of Petter M type, a Moteur-Cérès, 2 stroke power represented by a Stuart P4 genset and my own early Detroit engine. And the strong exhaust note of the Blackstone oil engine was clear anywhere you were in the garden.
Now, I’ve not mentioned anything about Lister yet this article, not because I didn’t think they were important enough, but its actually the opposite. Bicton Park has been in the ownership of the Lister family since 1998! and as such has It’s own collection of Lister engines exhibited on the grounds. So as well as the fine line up of visiting Listers, the public also get to enjoy a wonderful collection of resident engines.
A show not to be missed in 2026! Thank you for reading this article, as always detailed engines videos from this show and others can be found on various social media platforms! Its great getting input from all over the world on this fantastic hobby.
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Country: GB
