A brief history of THE BARNSTAPLE MODEL RAILWAY CLUB The Inaugural meeting of the BMRC took place on the 27 January 1971 at the home of John Ware one of the four founding members. The Members were Mr. John Ware (chairman) Mr. Brian Sweet (Secretary) Mr. Len Yeomans (Treasurer) and Mr. David Dalziel. The Clubroom at Umberleigh Station was the booking office leased from British Railways for the sum of 10 shillings per week, the lease being arranged by John Ware who worked for British Railways. At this time the Taw Valley MRC were starting a club to be at the Fox and Hounds at Eggesford but at the time for 2 or 3 weeks were meeting in a members home in Chittlehampton and we were invited to join them. We went there and to the Fox and Hounds several times but decided that time saved on the journey to Eggesford could be put to use building a layout, so we went our separate ways. At Umberleigh the layout was to be OO scale around the room. When we were well on with the layout it was decided that the club would invite Mr Cyril Freezer the editor of the Railway Modeller to be the President of the BMRC. We were pleased that he accepted the position .He visited the club with his wife and enjoyed a meal with us and our wives at the Commodore at Instow. Information of the club was getting about and we started getting requests for others to join us, so the club started to grow. During 1977 Len Yeomans invited us to use part of his garage in Barnstaple but after a couple of weeks there Brian Sweet had opened a shop in the High Street Barnstaple and offered the club the top floor of three rooms to do as we pleased in. We had to take a bathroom apart and remove the cast iron bath, and geyser, etc down 2 flights of stairs into the back garden where it was abandoned .We could then start to plan the new layout which would run from room to room through holes on the walls variously decorated as station building or bridges and tunnels. The 2 larger rooms were a station diagonally across the room and the other was a large siding area with 10 or 12 tracks the small room had a small station. The track between the two large rooms ran across the top of the stairs. Back scenes were painted on walls where needed. After 11 years Brian closed the shop and we were lucky that Jim Scott was able find us The Old Reading Room in Bishops Tawton. It was a large room with an upper floor over one end of the room. The room was probably 20 by 12 feet which suited the members as they had started to change from OO gauge to O gauge before leaving the High Street and the station that was being built fitted in to the new club room with suitably curved ends to give an oval circuit. The upstairs was narrow and stepped but we got tables and chairs installed so we could build the buildings and other bits and pieces off of the main layout. The club was at BishopsTawton for many years and we were then asked to leave as the Landlord wanted the building for other uses, so the club was without premises for some while but kept going and holding annual shows in the Barnstaple Parish Church hall until we out grew this and moved to a new modern venue at Christ Church bear St, which is where we now hold our successful annual exhibition. An offer was made by a visitor at one show for the club to use the loft of a building adjacent to his house where he had a model railway OO gauge which had been neglected for some time and we could bring it back to life and make use of it. After some time we were asked to leave and Gerald Hill suggested we could possible use a spare room at Fremmington Parish Hall, we accepted the terms on offer and in 2009 moved and enjoyed a number of years there before moving to Bideford from Bideford we moved to Torrington to the present day which we are back in Bideford. North Devon has grown somewhat in the last few years and we have members from all parts of the area so this has proved rather succesfull regards membership. Thanks goes to Brian Sweet for the early history of the club .