British Balloon Museum and Library

Memorabilia

Donations of equipment are usually stored with the Museum at a location centrally or left in the care of friends of the museum at locations near where they live.

The Museum has an amazing collections of black and white photographs dating back to the 1800s and early 1900s.

A lot of our collections come as donations or loans, but there are also the bequests. One such donation came from Thermal Aircraft. Following the sad loss of Tony Patey, his wife Yasuko donated several items of work. Amongst this collection were a sectioned propane tank, a sectioned Colt burner and paperwork.

Model balloons also feature in our collection, as do paintings, prints and magazines. Books and magazines go to the extensive library collection held at Cranfield.

The Museum holds a large number of Flown envelopes - postal envelopes- not balloon envelopes. Below are illustrations of just a small percentage of the collection.