Stationary engines at the Royal Bath & West is not a new addition, but previous shows had whittled down to a handful of engines in a small square pen off to one corner. In the last days of 2025, one of the shows organisers approached David Lacey to revive the engine section for the 2026 running, on the premise that the line up would be one that any show would be proud of. Safe to say David absolutely got this spot on with the engine folk he chose to exhibit!
Everything lined up pretty darn perfectly for the engine section, with a prime location by one of the major entrances to the show, with hundreds of people passing through every day. Not being a vintage show, I’m sure it made quite a welcome for the unsuspecting punters, greeted with a chorus of different chuffs, pops and driving engine notes. This made for plenty of questions to be answered for the exhibitors, from your standard “What does it do?” to some surprisingly technical ones! Aside from one rain shower on the Friday, the weather was spot on for all three days.
We had no two engines the same! Oldest was the J.E.H. Andrew hot tube engine from 1896 with its Hayward Tyler & Co water pump from the same year, Exhibited by Chris and Dennis Barnes. We had four Blackstone engines, the Barnes with 5HP Portable, John Thorne’s 4HP was driving a Blackstone cutter, a 9HP Type O, and David Lacey with a vertical example.
From the high revving range we had a lone 2 stroke being a 1905 3HP Avance from Sweden. The hottest running engine of the show was the Russell Newbery generating set. Quite some heat haze coming off that exhaust! A Fairbanks Morse Z working away on its own dynamo.
Slower running machines included a JB Crossley, The finned hopper of the Aermotor, a lovely big Hornsby, a duel side shaft Crossley and the recently restored Invincible engine. A (Nearly) full rundown of the engines involved is in the Youtube video attached below.
Personally, the engines were second to the comradery from my fellow exhibitors. I feel incredibly lucky to find myself invited among them. It was one of those shows that confirm exactly why we do this hobby and I am very thankful. Continuing on the thanks, David Lacey has some to add:
“Thanks to Trevor Wilcox and Steve Rodd for their invaluable help leading up to and on the show days, I also must thank all my exhibitors for taking the time and their considerable effort in loading some fabulous engines, some travelling some long distances.”
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Country: GB
