Sammy Miller Motorcycle Museum

Started by Sammy Miller MBE, 11 times British Champion and winner of over 1400 events including trials and road racing, the museum is situated in the beautiful New Forest area of New Milton in Hampshire. As can be expected it is a gathering place for bikers from all over the country, and indeed the world as can be seen in the visitor's book - and now they have had a visit from a biker from the western cape, South Africa!

The Museum holds over 460 motorcycles, both rare and classic including a wonderful collection of  Nortons and is apparently the home of one of the finest collections of fully restored motorcycles in the world, almost every motorcycle is in full running order.

The museum is laid out in clean and tidy consecutive rooms and as you would imagine it takes a good couple of hours to take it all in, in fact rather a couple of visits would be better, a luxury that I did not have.

There are no modern bikes on display although there are some fairly recent classics such as this beautiful Honda CBX;

and this iconic Suzuki Katana 1100, both highly desirable motorcycles.

Move through to another room and you'll see fabulously restored bikes such as this Vincent Black Shadow or the BSA Bantam.

On the left is the Bultaco Sherpa T designed and developed by Sammy Miller who won every major trial and championship on it including the Scottish 6 day trials, the British Expert trials and the Scott trials in 1968. On the right is the 250cc N.S.U. Sport Max with full fairing which he rode to 2nd place in the Ulster GrandPrix of 1955 and '56, to first place in the North West 200 in '55, '56 and '57 and over 35 Irish road race victories, so as you can see, the man knew his racing!

I spent a happy couple of hours there taking it all in but I still had a two hour drive back to Dorking ahead of me so I had to call it a day, hopefully I will visit this fascinating place again someday because as they say; it is a living museum with knew machines being added all the time. If you're ever visiting the UK I would encourage you to add this museum to your list of must-see places.

I said farewell with a last loving look at the collection of Triumphs and BSAs, some of which I used to ride as a young man and headed for home.

     

I could not resist a brief stop for just the one beer in the White Swan in the centre of the New   Forest on the way, it had been a great day out, I programmed the GPS and followed her directions back to Dorking. Remember to click on the photos to see them full size.