Lord Montagu hands Mrs Irene Sparrow her plaque at the first Beaulieu rally in 1961.

Rally organiser John Crawley transports us back to the 1960s when he ran a string of several steam rallies at Beaulieu, Hampshire – the home of Lord Montagu and his famous motor museum.

The steam rallies held at Beaulieu in the 1960s really came about through my involvement with the Woburn rallies. One year, the Duke of Bedford invited Lord Montagu across to one of the Woburn events and, as a result of what he saw, I received a telephone call later that year asking me if I’d be prepared to run a rally for him in the grounds of his home, Palace House.

I replied that in principle I was willing but we’d have to meet and make the arrangements. His lordship said ‘Naturally’ and invited me down to Palace House for Sunday lunch.

Within its grounds was located the Montagu Motor Museum, his lordship’s family being ‘in at the birth’ of the motor car. Nowadays, of course, what was our rally field has been consumed by the relatively newer National Motor Museum and if you haven’t been, it’s something that even a diehard steam man shouldn’t miss. For every time I’ve been I’ve always come away thinking that something half, or even a quarter of the size, of it devoted to traction engines in their many forms would equal the importance to our past economy that the motor car does – now there’s an idea!

Harry H Corbett, the son in the BBC TV comedy Steptoe & Son, was Lord Montagu’s guest at the 1969 rally and is seen posing with the latter on his engine, Burrell showman’s No 3443 Lord Nelson.

The date of the first rally was set for Whitsun Bank Holiday, Sunday/Monday 21-22 May 1961. Once the arrangements had been made I couldn’t have asked for better co-operation. His lordship, it was agreed, would open the events and then steer the leading engine on a lap of honour – something I think he thought was rather unusual for in his ‘motor car world’ this was something that you did when you’d won something. He offered to personally present each driver with a Beaulieu memento as they drove past him and free tickets for the museum were given to all entrants as well as the hosting of a reception for the crews on the Saturday night.

The rally field was set in the historic grounds and gardens of Palace House, formerly the 14th century Great Gatehouse of the Beaulieu Abbey, now in ruins. The House has been in Lord Montagu’s family ownership since 1538, when Sir Thomas Wriothesley, later First Earl of Southampton, bought the estate after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

When photographing engines in those early days I recorded them in great detail but regretfully not always the details of where and when, so please bear with me, as I can’t now remember how many rallies I ran at Beaulieu! (I think it’s nine, Ed.)

Attendances were very good but I had to remember when working to a budget that Beaulieu could only draw on a 180-degree catchment area being situated near the coast, whereby events at Woburn had no such problem.

All of the rallies were successful and I never received a single complaint, so it would appear that we satisfied our patrons. Let’s have a look at some of the entries in those 1960s Beaulieu rallies and see what was about then in this part of central Southern England.

End of the On-line article.
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