THE Rural Life Centre has completed an ambitious Lottery-funded project to relocate a 100-year-old family-run cycle workshop from Frimley Green to the outdoor museum in Tilford.

Over the past two years, the iconic SWV Deeks cycle shop has been carefully demolished and transported brick by brick to the 10-acre site on The Reeds Road, complete with its Aladdin’s cave of tools and bikes spanning the decades.

It is the Rural Life Centre’s first building acquisition in several years and the museum believes it could be the first time a British museum has moved a whole garage and contents to become an exhibit.

The cycle workshop was constructed by Samuel John Deeks in 1912 at a cost of £162-17-6, and over the next four decades expanded to include the manufacture of cycles, motorcycle and car repairs, car hire and even petrol sales.

Following the death of Samuel in 1956 aged 72, his son Samuel William Victor ‘Vic’ Deeks continued to run the business for a further 46 years until retiring in 2002. Vic died in 2007 aged 84 and his daughters Judith and Ann offered the workshop building and contents to the Rural Life Centre in April 2011.

In June 2014, the museum secured a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to relocate the workshop, and engaged the Elstead Building Company to dismantle and rebuild the building.

Rural Life Centre volunteers transported 20 lorry loads of fixtures and fittings from Frimley Green to the museum and the rebuild of the workshop started in January 2015.

Now open to the public, the oil soaked wooden blocks that covered the workshop’s floor have been retained, providing the aroma of a true workshop, and all of its major pieces of equipment and fittings have been installed.

Volunteers have been cleaning and accessioning the workshop’s tools and smaller items, and a Deeks’ family tradition of hanging a hot cross bun from the ceiling every Good Friday to bring good luck and protection from evil spirits has also been replicated.

The Rural Life Centre is open Wednesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm. Entry costs from £7 for children (aged five to 16) to £9.50 for adults. Concessions and family tickets are available, and children aged under five go free.

Call 01252 795571 or visit the website www.rural-life.org.uk for more information.