TERRY Waite signalled the official opening of Lymm Heritage Centre with an old fashioned bicycle horn.

It proved to be an apt way to launch the transformation of the former Royal British Legion premises as the centre’s first exhibition called A Quiet Revolution is about the social history of cycling and its impact on the village.

Humanitarian and author Terry, who grew up in Lymm, opened the building, next to the Saddlers pub, off Bridgewater Street, as he is the heritage centre’s patron.

But for chairman Alan Williams and his supporters, including a management team of 15 and around 50 volunteers, it was also the realisation of a two and a half year dream.

Alan said: “It’s been quite a long time in the making and it’s been an extraordinary project.

“The idea started with my wife and her huge collection of bygones and this threat to open a small museum which I quietly ignored until one day she talked about going to rent a room in Lymm.

"We started to talk to other people and what gradually emerged was what we really needed was a centre which represented the heritage of the village and also gave people the opportunity to learn more about the village.

“We’re going to be involved in education for schools and we’re going to have another group involved in trying to document, digitise and archive information for the village.”

Plans for Lymm Heritage Centre were made possible when Thelwall businessman Howard Platt bought the former Royal British Legion club in 2015 because he was so impressed by Alan’s vision and could afford to do so. Then in March a £88,000 grant was secured from the Heritage Lottery Fund while a further £12,000 was raised by the community.

Alan, 66, added: “When we started this group there were some people who said: ‘That will never work. We looked at that 25 years ago. It can’t be done. You’ll never get premises. You’ll never be able to afford it’.

"Now we’re in a position where all the refurbishment has been paid for and Howard has given us the premises rent free for three years. We couldn’t have a more benevolent landlord.”

Paul Adams from Walton Hall Cycle Museum provided a range of 19th century bicycles for the heritage centre’s first exhibition while former Birchwood High pupil Kane Williams designed the display boards.

The exhibition also coincides with the 200th anniversary of the bicycle as it was in 1817 that Baron Karl von Drais invented the draisienne, a ‘two-wheeled horseless vehicle’.

Alan, who previously organised an exhibition at Lymm Hotel about when the 1966 World Cup Brazil team came to Lymm, said: “We have aspirations in the longer term to create an exhibition which tells the whole of the Lymm story.

"But in the short term we had what I saw as a unique opportunity to present an exhibition about something I’m quietly passionate about. Paul has one of the biggest collection of bicycles in the country, he’s participated in Lymm Historic Transport Day for the past four or five years.

"And it just occurred to me: We think about canals, we think about railways but actually for a lot of people the form of transport that changed their lives more than anything was the bicycle.”

Terry Waite, 78, who used to work at Henry Milling grocery store which is featured in the exhibition, said: “Those of you who know Warrington 60 years ago will remember all the provision shops.

"The Maypole, Dewhurst and Henry Milling and Company Ltd, high class grocers and provision merchants, and you’d go in and you’d smell the coffee roasting. It really a wonderful old place. Lymm was one of the branches run by Mrs Kenwright.

It is a great honour for me to be patron of the project. It has been more than 60 years since I lived in Lymm but it is a place I’ve never forgotten and my sister Diana still lives here after all these years.”

Mayor Cllr Les Morgan said: “Alan does wonderful work in and around Lymm as a historian and an author. He deserves an award.”

Howard Platt’s wife Wendy, of Laskey Farm, added: “Howard absolutely loves the village and really wanted to put something back into the community.

"We’re really privileged to live in such a vibrant place where so much is going on and Howard wanted to make sure Alan was supported in his dream of opening such a fantastic facility.”