Frank Hornby: Inspiring future generations
The Frank Hornby Charitable Trust
Maghull’s Frank Hornby
Heritage Centre
A journey that started with humble beginnings, tinkering with a toy to entertain and educate his children, to being an inventor, industrialist, businessman, politician and millionaire.
MECCANO - A sign of the times
Not so long ago Maghull's Frank Hornby Heritage Centre was given this huge Meccano former shop sign.
It had once graced the frontage of Piccadilly Models in Manchester city centre.
Originally donated to the North West Meccano Guild, they in turn have presented it to our Heritage Centre. It's nearly 12 ft long and looks great in its new home.
An Eagle has landed in Maghull - Just arrived at our Frank Hornby Heritage Centre (May ‘25) a Dinky blue Eagle Freighter from the Gerry Andreson TV Series Space 1999. A white ‘Rescue’ one will also land soon.
National Museums Liverpool have a podcast all about Maghull's famous resident Frank Hornby.
Les French & Tony Robertson take part in the podcast from the Frank Hornby Charitable Trust to help tell the story of the world famous toy maker and his influences - use this link to listen to it -
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/frank-hornby-national-museums-liverpool-podcast
Watch Narrow Escapes on Ch4 to see a visit to
Maghull’s Frank Hornby Heritage Centre
'Narrow Escapes' a Ch 4 TV programme about canal journeys includes a visit to Maghull's Frank Hornby Heritage Centre by a couple taking part in it. It's series 2, episode 1 first broadcast on 5th May 2025.
The couple are travelling the Leeds Liverpool Canal into Liverpool and stop off at Maghull to do some shopping and visit both the Heritage Centre and the Frank Hornby Pub.
The series is is on the Ch 4 Player to stream. The 2nd episode shows the couple leaving Maghull and travelling the canal into Liverpool so you might want to view both.
The recording at the Heritage Centre was done September 2024.
AVRO York
A Dinky Toys Avro York aeroplane has found its way into our collection at Maghull’s Frank Hornby Heritage Centre.
Produced from 1954 to 1959 for Dinky it was numbered 704 then renumbered to 70A.
Maghull (Meadows) Library Courtyard G Scale Railway
It’s inaccessible/not operating due to the fire & required extensive repairs to Maghull Town Hall behind it.
Sefton Libraries/The Frank Hornby Trust do not know when it will be opperational. More news when we have it.
The inside G Scale end-to-end railway continues to work well and is run at the discretion of Library staff to fit in with other library activities.
This website aims to explore all things in the Hornby Universe, past and present, with the objective of generating a vast knowledge base in order to educate and connect enthusiasts.
The Frank Hornby Charitable Trust runs and curates the Frank Hornby Heritage Centre in Maghull on Merseyside, the Town where Frank Hornby lived for much of his adult life.
The Centre is within Meadows Leisure Centre on Hall Lane Maghull L31 7BB. It opens the same hours/days as Maghull Library, presently 10 am - 5 pm Monday to Friday and 10 am - 2 pm Saturday. Please note, we’re NOT open on Sundays and Bank Holidays.
Our Heritage Centre, whilst being very much about Frank Hornby and the products of his Meccano Factory, also takes an interest in products that subsequently fell under differing ownerships, particularly following the demise of the Meccano Factory in 1979.
See our FHHC gallery photos under the ‘Products’ tag above
There is no charge to visit our Heritage Centre but donations can be made via our collection box.
Please see our disability access note for the FHHC on our ‘Places to visit’ page under the ‘Clubs, Associations & Enthusiasts’ tab above.
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Our Memory/Education Box is available to be borrowed via Sefton Council’s Library Service.
Please follow the link below (or speak to Maghull staff) & search for ‘Educational Box: Frank Hornby’ to start the booking process - Educational Box: Frank Hornby
The Hornby/Meccano items in the box include a clockwork 0 Gauge train & track, 2 built Meccano models & some Dinky Toys.
Explanatory cards box tell users all about Hornby/Meccano so that they can lead a talk in schools, care homes, or to community/local history organisations, etc.
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Looking for someone to give a Hornby talk?
If you’d like one of our volunteer trustees to come to give a talk please email Les French at caractorgraphics@yahoo.co.uk
We do ask for a minimum donation of £30 for such talks to cover our costs and to bring some money into our small charitable trust.
Our trustees will usually travel to venues within Merseyside and Lancashire but please feel free to contact us if you are further away to see if we can accommodate your request.
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Donations to our Charitable Trust
Monetary donations go straight into our funds which are used to make appropriate purchases for display at our Maghull Heritage Centre.
We have a donations box in our Maghull Heritage Centre which can also be used to pay for books purchased from our small library of mainly railway related reading.
We often get donations of model railway-related items, model cars, transport-related books, items of Meccano etc. etc. If the items are unrelated to Meccano/Hornby/Dinky Toys/other products of Hornby/Meccano we will usually sell them to help our Trust. If they are Hornby etc. we will put them on display at our Heritage Centre. If we already have an item we’ll keep the best and sell others.
All our funds are used for the benefit of our Trust and we are grateful for all donations.
If you’d like to donate items to our charitable trust please contact Tony Robertson at -t3robertson@gmail.com
Do you remember BAYKO?
We have a display of it at our Maghull Heritage Centre.
Meccano manufactured it 1959/64. Prior to that it was made by Plimptons of Liverpool.
A Meccano helicopter on display at Maghull’s Frank Hornby Heritage Centre
NML Curator Sharon Brown writes about some famous designers, inventors, scientists etc. who were inspired by playing with Meccano as children
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/how-meccano-changed-world