The Trust is looking for a new home as its 60-year lease runs down. Beaulieu says four years remain, the Montagu cars stay and the Autojumble is on.

The National Motor Museum is leaving Beaulieu. The National Motor Museum Trust announced on 11 August that it has begun looking for what it calls a “transformational new home” for the collection, because its lease at Beaulieu is “approaching the end of its 60-year term”.

A day later Beaulieu published its own statement setting out what that means for the estate, and it contains the number the Trust’s announcement leaves out: the Trust’s lease at Beaulieu “continues for another four years”. That puts the end of the arrangement in 2030, and it squares with the other date in the Trust’s release. Robert MacGregor, chair of the Trust’s board, thanked the Montagu family “for founding the Trust in 1970”. A 60-year lease granted around 1970 expires around 2030.

Nothing changes for anyone visiting this year, next year or the year after.

What the Trust said

The Trust’s statement frames the move as the next stage of a strategy to “reimagine and reinvigorate” the museum, expand its work in learning and community engagement, and develop a training centre for heritage engineering apprenticeships. It says the Trust and the Montagu family spent the last two years exploring whether that could be done at Beaulieu “through major donor investment and potential redevelopment”, and concluded that it could not.

MacGregor said the Trust was “sad that the National Motor Museum will be leaving Beaulieu” but “very excited about this once in a generation opportunity to transform the Museum for the future”, adding that a new home would “enable us to make the collection more accessible, expand our educational and community impact, and ensure Britain’s motoring story remains relevant”.

Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, quoted in the same release, said his father’s ambition was “to record and celebrate the story of motoring for the benefit of the nation”, that the collections “have expanded beyond what anyone at the time envisaged”, and that the charity’s long-term aims “will now stand the best chance of being achieved if it can be based in a new home”.

No destination has been named. The Trust says it “will now begin exploring potential locations” and that “further updates will be provided as the process progresses”.

What Beaulieu said

Beaulieu’s statement of 12 August is the more concrete of the two, because it deals with what stays.

  • Beaulieu intends to keep running a motor museum. The estate says the day-to-day operation “will not change from a visitor experience perspective” and that it “intends to continue to operate a motor museum in the future, as it has for over 70 years”.
  • A large part of what you see is not the Trust’s. Beaulieu says “a significant amount of vehicles in the museum are either on loan or owned by the Montagu family and will continue to stay here”. It does not put a number on that.
  • The events calendar is unaffected, including the International Autojumble.
  • After 2030 the museum at Beaulieu gets reshaped. The estate describes “an exciting opportunity to look to the future and reshape how the museum at Beaulieu will look and feel”.

Beaulieu also sets out where the collection began: when Edward, Lord Montagu opened Palace House to visitors in 1952, he put five veteran cars in the entrance hall as a tribute to his father, the motoring pioneer John Scott Montagu. That grew into the Montagu Motor Museum and then the National Motor Museum.

The scale of what is moving

Timeline of the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, from 1952 to the end of the lease in 2030 A horizontal timeline. 1952: Palace House opens to visitors with five veteran cars in the entrance hall. Around 1970: the Montagu family founds the National Motor Museum Trust and a 60-year lease begins. 2004: the present Trust company is incorporated. 2024: the Trust reports income of 3.59 million pounds against expenditure of 3.64 million pounds. 2025: Beaulieu records 310,384 visits. 11 August 2026: the Trust announces a search for a new home. 12 August 2026: Beaulieu says the lease has four years left and it will keep running a motor museum. 12 to 13 September 2026: the International Autojumble goes ahead. 2030: the 60-year lease ends. A 60-year lease, granted around 1970, runs out in 2030 The Trust announced its search on 11 August 2026. Beaulieu replied the next day that four years of the lease remain. 1952 c.1970 2004 2024 11-12 Aug 2026 12-13 Sep 2026 2030 Palace House opens, 5 cars Trust founded, 60-year lease Present Trust company formed Income £3.59m, spend £3.64m Move announced; Beaulieu replies Autojumble goes ahead Lease ends What the Trust is looking to rehouse Vehicles on display Items in the wider collection Paid staff Volunteers Visits to Beaulieu in 2025 over 200 more than 1.9 million 23 230 310,384 Sources: National Motor Museum Trust and Beaulieu statements, 11 and 12 August 2026; Charity Commission register for charity 1107656 (year to 31 December 2024); Companies House 05316070; ALVA 2025 visitor figures. Graphic by New Forest Daily.
The collection the Trust now has to rehouse, and the dates that set the clock running. Graphic by New Forest Daily.

The Trust’s own description of the collection gives a sense of the job. It has “a world-famous collection of over 200 vehicles” on display, and an internationally acclaimed collection of “more than 1.9 million items” including film footage, images, documents and books, cared for at the nearby Collections Centre. It is an Accredited Museum and all of its collections have been designated by Arts Council England as being of national and international importance.

The charity behind it, registered number 1107656, reported income of £3,589,901 against expenditure of £3,636,218 in the year to 31 December 2024, so it spent about £46,000 more than it took in. It employs 23 people and works with 230 volunteers, and has 13 trustees, none of them paid. The company that runs it, 05316070, was incorporated on 17 December 2004 and is registered at the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu.

For scale on the visitor side: Beaulieu recorded 310,384 visits in 2025, ranking 140th in the ALVA visitor figures and up 1 per cent on the year before. It is one of the largest paid attractions in the New Forest.

One small inconsistency is worth flagging, because it will be repeated. The Trust’s statement says in one place that the Montagu family founded the Trust in 1970, and in its own boilerplate that the charity was “founded in 1972”. Neither the Trust nor Beaulieu has published the lease itself, so the exact expiry date is not on the public record. The four-year figure is Beaulieu’s.

What it means for you

If you were planning a visit, go. Both parties say the same thing: nothing changes now. The Trust says that during this period “visitors to Beaulieu will see no change”, and Beaulieu says the day-to-day operation of the museum will not change.

The Autojumble is on. Beaulieu confirms its International Autojumble runs on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 September 2026, 9.30am to 5pm on the Saturday and 9am to 4.30pm on the Sunday, with admission to the attractions included.

There will still be a motor museum at Beaulieu after 2030, on the estate’s own account, though a different one. How different depends on how much of the display belongs to the Trust rather than the Montagu family, and neither statement breaks that down.

Nobody yet knows where the national collection goes. If it leaves Hampshire, the district loses its best-known cultural asset and a significant slice of the reason people drive here. That is a decision with no published timetable, and the Trust has committed only to “further updates as the process progresses”.

Beaulieu sits inside the New Forest National Park, so any redevelopment on the estate after 2030 would go to the National Park Authority rather than the district council. We track decisions on our New Forest planning page, and if you are driving over, the roadworks and travel page has the current closures and the forest car park charges.

Sources