Holbeach Bell End Speedway

[BuckTaylor64]

Situated at Whaplode St Catherine and is reported to have used three or four different tracks situated at the venue, this former track still hosts Autograss.

 

Does anyone know if the Autograss track is on the same site as one of the old speedway tracks? The address appears to be the same.

[BuckTaylor64]

I take it no one knows!

[manchesterpaul]

There's information on Google and they did have motorcycle speedway.

[Hunters]

Only just picked this thread up I didn't think anybody would remember Bell End. It was my introduction to Speedway. We lived in Peterborough and several Sunday Afternoons my Father took us to Bell End for what we thought was a group of local lads riding bikes round a dirt track with only a wire fence and some Railway sleepers for people to stand on. We went to Lunch at a Hotel next to the track and sat at a table next to one of the riders I had come to like best and I got my Father to get his autograph for me.

Next year we heard that Leicester Hunters had started up and spent every Friday for many years going there. On the first visit I bought my first Speedway Magazine and there on the front page was a photo of my favourite from Bell End. He wasn't a local lad but the Wembley & England Captain Bill Kitchen.

There were several full Speedway meetings at Bell End on Sundays and names that come to mind are 'Tiger' Hart , Oliver Hart, Geoff Pymer, Jack & Norman Parker, Eric Chitty in addition to Kitchen

[cyclone]

Courtesy of speedwayswapshop.co.uk old programme gallery, here are images of two Bell End programme covers :-

 

 

Holbeach & Spalding vs Bill Kitchen's Northern Stars (chal) 16/4/1939

 

http://www.speedwayswapshop.co.uk/images/bend1.jpg

 

and

 

Bill Kitchen's Team vs Norman Parker's Team (chal) 15/6/1947

 

http://www.speedwayswapshop.co.uk/images/bend3.jpg

[Lord Antebellum]

From Berwick's programme dated May 10th this season (when Scunthorpe were due to visit) although actually used the following week after a rain-off:

 

 

"Tonight, we have Scunthorpe here in Tweedmouth. Sunny Scunny, where the World Champion was born.

 

A Lincolnshire town of many tracks and nicknames. They raced as Saints at the big Quibell Park athletic track, and later as Stags at the little circuit in Ashby Ville. Now they are Scorpions, and firmly ensconced in their purpose-built Eddie Wright Raceway at Normanby Road.

 

I’m glad they’ve settled down in a good home at last – full marks to Rob Godfrey, his helpers and buddies over the past decade – but they really need to decide on a permanent nickname……

 

Maybe history can help. Scunny wasn’t the first speedway in Lincolnshire, you know. Before and just after the war, the Tulips (now there’s a nickname!) raced under open licence at the wonderfully-named Bell End speedway, close to Holbeach.

 

This was to be the venue for the first-ever England v Denmark Test – in July, 1947! Sadly, the Danes – citing a lack of transport for their bikes -- had to call off at the last minute, even after programmes were printed (any anorak-wearing avid collector got one of those?) and the meeting quickly became England (top scorer Split Waterman 17) against The Rest (Tiger Hart 15) with the English side winning 61-46.

 

Thus, due to post-war logistical problems (they should have had a good shipping agent, but I was only four) Bell End Speedway could only end up boasting of hosting “the international that never was”

 

So I put it to the Scunthorpe folk – why dither about between Stags, Saints or Scorpions? Look back in history, and use a club nickname that resonates of speedway in Lincolnshire during the glory years in the late 1940’s – why not call yourselves the Bell Ends?"

[The White Knight]

So I put it to the Scunthorpe folk – why dither about between Stags, Saints or Scorpions? Look back in history, and use a club nickname that resonates of speedway in Lincolnshire during the glory years in the late 1940’s – why not call yourselves the Bell Ends?"

THAT is dreadful. :rofl: :rofl:

[smod]

Found this thread, and laughed myself silly at the new Scunny nick-name!

[arnieg]

Bell End Speedway could only end up boasting of hosting “the international that never was?

Not unique though - anyone remember the 1963 Great Britain v USSR series?

[sommelier]

I have programmes of Bell End

[Guest]

I think that England international Ted Gibson was among regular starters at Bell End?

[Sotonian]

Not unique though - anyone remember the 1963 Great Britain v USSR series?

Yes. One of the matches was scheduled for Southampton.

[Guest]

Didn't a local priest take part in either actual races or practice at Bell End in 1939 and the mid-1940s?

[Guest]

By John Hyam:

BELL End Speedway at Holbeach, Lincolnshire:

This track staged meetings in the late 1930s and again in the early post-war years, from 1945 to about 1950. Primarily for motorcycle speedway, there was also an attempt to stage midget car racing on August 24, 1947.

Thanks to another midget car historian (there are others besides myself!), Derek Bridgett provided me with a copy of that meeting’s programme. And most of the pre-war drivers were in action: Walter Mackereth, Spike Rhiando, Frank Chiswell, Johnny Young, Vic Patterson, Billy Murden and Vic Worswick were listed.

There were 12 races over either six or eight laps. And of tantalising interest, there was also a speedway bike v midget car race. No names are given for the latter event, nor did the programme carry any heat results.

But on the programme’s back cover - and not listed for the midget car races - is the name of speedway rider Wilf Plant. Did he ride against the midget and who won? I doubt if we will ever know.

Bell End was an unusual track. It had grass straights and cinder bends, the latter was its claim to being a speedway. It all ended when the ACU decreed, sometime in the late 1940s, that it was a grass track and that the motorcycles had to be fitted with brakes.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Guest

[Guest]

Can any BSF member answer this query which has been passed to me please?

"Is the Autograss Oval at Hurdletree Bank one of the tracks that used for Bell End speedway? I say 'one of' as i understand there were a few tracks used for Bell End speedway at Whaplode St Catherine."