National Cycle Museum
The National Cycle Museum is a national museum about bicycles in the United Kingdom. It is in Llandrindod Wells, Wales, and opened in 1997.
The museum’s collection began in 1979 when Ray Fixter started assembling bikes at Belton House near Grantham. It opened to the public on 26 April 1980 as the Belton Cycle Museum. After Fixter died in 1983, James Maynard, Edward Skeet and Anthony Pickering ran it. When Belton House was given to the National Trust, the museum lost its home and moved to Lincoln, opening there in 1984 as the National Cycle Museum. It moved in 1994 to a second Lincoln site and closed in 1996.
In 1997 the Welsh Tourist Board helped bring together three collections—Tom Norton, David Higman, and the National Cycle Museum—into a new site in Llandrindod Wells, Powys.
The collection now has over 260 bicycles, from an 1818 hobby-horse to modern carbon-fibre bikes, including many penny-farthings and solid-tyred safety bikes. It also holds cycling books and gear.
The building is called The Automobile Palace, built by bike shop owner Tom Norton. It was completed in 1911 in Art Deco style and expanded in 1919. It is a Grade II* listed building because of its early grid-pattern steel frame and its largely unchanged design.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:47 (CET).