Aviation Museum at Blenheim

[Dave Homewood]

According to Ron Cuskelly's article about Hudson survivors in Classic Wings Vol 9 Issue 1, there was apparently an aviation museum in Blenheim up till 1973. The Hudson which is now at Ferrymead was there for a while, though still owned privately by the Holdaway family of Dillons Point, Blenheim, it says.

Does anyone know more about the museum? What else did they have, and what happened to their other exhibits or archives?

[Peter Lewis]

Do you mean Golden Age?

[Dave Homewood]

Hi Peter,

I'm not sure what Golden Age was, but this question I asked was kindly answered by Denys Jones, chief restorer of the Hudson at Ferrymead, on another forum. He wrote

"The Marlborough Museum of Flight was really one guy named Warwick Bint and they uplifted the Hudson from the Holdaways and took it to, of all places, Warwick's residence. This was a block of flats in Blenheim and it sat alongside the driveway there. I recall seeing a photo of it there somewhere once.

All that happened to it was some paint was stripped off the port nose. Then Warwick left Bleanheim and it all fell apart. The Holdaways had to go and reclaim the aircraft and took it back to their farm. We heard this had happened so wrote to them and said that if they were ever to dispose of it we'd like first option on it. They replied immediately to the effect that we could have it if we repaid the $30 it had cost to get it back (these are 1970's $). So we acquired NZ2035.

The Holdaways had three wings and a few other small parts which we got as well. MoTaT then furnished bits that they had reclaimed earlier from the Holdaways."

There's more here
forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=48876&highlight=Hudson+Blenheim