DAY TRIP BACK IN TIME! – Discover ME

Havering Museum’s chairman, Peter Stewart, makes friends with Edward and Stanford

On Saturday 21st July, thousands of local residents and shoppers from Thames Chase in Upminster to Havering Museum in the High Street, Romford, where staggered when a 19th Century, horse-drawn Omnibus with 18 people on board swept passed them.
Pulled by two magnificent Shire horses, Edward and Stanford, the genuine heritage omnibus, helped to celebrate the relaunch of DiscoverME, a project bringing together historic sites across Havering, Barking & Dagenham and Thurrock. This includes Havering Museum, one of the founder members of the group. The day also highlighted The Land of the Fanns Landscape Scheme. This is a huge area on the edge of East London that includes Fanns (or fens), forests and farms that have been evolving since the last Ice Age. This project was awarded £1.36million by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) in 2016.
On arrival in Romford, the carriage parked in the Market Place, opposite The Golden Lion, while the lucky passengers enjoyed a tour of the Museum. Hundreds of shoppers gathered around the bus and had their photos taken with the two Shires…real gentle giants.
On leaving Romford the omnibus stopped at the Windmill and Old Chapel in St. Mary’s Lane, Upminster before ending its unforgettable journey back to Thames Chase.
A day trip of a lifetime around Havering!

2 Comments

  1. Iris Goddard on 8th August 2018 at 08:15

    How come as a member of the Museum this outing is the first I have seen of it, why was it not mentioned to us.

    • Pete Johnson on 8th August 2018 at 09:38

      Hi Iris,
      Sorry you didn’t get to hear about this tour but it wasn’t something run by the Havering Museum, it was organised and arranged by Land of the Fanns and Discover Metropolitan Essex (DiscoverME) as part of their campaign to relaunch the heritage attractions in our area.
      DiscoverME did advertise the event on their website and it was quickly over subscribed as there were a very limited number of seats available. Havering Museum is a founder member of DiscoverME which is one of the reasons we were chosen as one of the stopping off places along with a couple of other DiscoverME locations like Thames Chase, the Upminster Windmill and the Old Chapel.

      Pete Johnson

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