HISTORICAL objects from Swindon’s former Agricultural Museum have been saved from the scrap heap after a community group raised the money to rehome them.

Local group Save Swindon’s Heritage managed to raise more than £600 in two days after the Adver revealed around 20 agricultural items were sent to a Swindon scrap metal yard last week.

The artefacts used to belong the Swindon’s Agricultural Museum at Coate which burnt down in a New Years Eve fire in 2017.

Sally Hawson, who leads Save Swindon’s Heritage and shared the GoFundMe page on Friday, told the Adver: “After the news I immediately phoned the scrap yard. The owner was really great, normally the items would have got crushed straight away, but he wanted to take a closer look to see what they were.”

“If he hadn’t made that decision there wouldn’t have been anything to save.”

“All of this stuff should never have left Swindon, we should have found proper homes for them here. It’s just another case of how badly our heritage assets are mishandled by the council I’m afraid.

“It’s a struggle but it’s one of the reason why my group exists. We have members that actually put hands in their pocket. In two days we raised £550. That’s a lot of money for members to come up with.”

Owner of Swindon Scrap Metal Recycling Steve Bowers told the Adver: “I stopped it being scrapped to help Sally out. They were so old and it’s not very often you pick that sort of stuff up. If it had gone straight for scrapping it would have all been chopped up by now. I’m just trying to keep everyone happy. They were very keen to get it all. I couldn’t really scrap it, I was happy to help them. out I’ll probably just end up donating it to them.”

The fundraiser was set up on Friday evening and by Sunday it reached its target to cover the cost of moving the items to a new temporary home owned by one of the group’s members.

Helping to organise the rescue of agricultural implements were local farmers Ken Gough and Kay Lacy, and Roy Cartwright who told the Adver: “This whole thing could have been avoided if the council got hold of the Adver to see if anyone could take in all this stuff. A simple bit of common sense was that it required.”

The group has had interest from groups and individuals who are interested in restoring the items, including Swindon Cricklade Railway.