Scarborough Fair Collection

The Scarborough Fair Collection & Vintage Transport Museum Accessed from the roundabout beside the Plough Inn on the A165 coast road between Scarborough and Filey is the family owned Flower of May Holiday Park and adjacent to it is the Scarborough Fair Collection & Vintage Transport Museum (SFC&VTM).

The SFC&VTM was once the ‘hidden gem’ of the Yorkshire coast, not any more. The museum attracts thousands of visitors to view its unique collection of working vintage fairground rides, mechanical organs and the collection of vintage vehicles in the transport halls.

This fully ‘wheelchair friendly’ museum is now one of the largest indoor attractions in the Scarborough area. The collection is looked after by a small team of staff and volunteers who operate the vintage fairground rides, which include the Golden Gallopers, Thriller, Cake Walk, Ghost Train and the Caterpillar. The vintage fairground rides help to tell the story of ‘how things used to be’ and the museum is visited by parents and grandparents telling the next generation of their own personal memories.

The vintage transport part of the museum is a large collection of cycles, motorcycles, cars, commercial vehicles and steam traction engines, with exhibits dating from the late 19th century through to the 1980s. Just a few of the vehicles on display in the museum are the ‘Iron Maiden’ showman’s engine from the 1960s film of the same name, a 1916 Albion WW1 army wagon, a 1915 Napier double decker bus and much more. There is something in the SFC&VTM for every generation to say “my dad or grandad had one of them”.

From 1pm every Wednesday (the museum opens as normal at 10am) there is a ‘dance to the Mighty Wurlitzer’ organ afternoon in the museum’s ballroom, which is also the place to find the café and bar.

With plenty of free parking the museum is open to the public from Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm, from spring until the end of autumn and is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. For more information and the days when the museum will be closed for a private function, please visit the museum’s website www.scarboroughfaircollection.com, see the Facebook page, or ring 01723 586698. For information about an organised group visit to the museum please send an email to info@scarboroughfaircollection.com.