The secret wildlife of Brooklands Museum

As Brooklands Museum prepares to mark 100 years since Britain’s first Grand Prix, a quieter story is unfolding across the historic racetrack - captured through the lens of its 20-year-old photographer, Max Williamson.

By day, Brooklands Museum in Surrey roars with life as historic vehicles thunder up Test Hill and families and enthusiasts explore Concorde, racing cars and the legendary banking of the world’s first purpose-built race track.

When the gates close, the engines fall silent and the crowds head home - another side to Brooklands Museum emerges.

Foxes slip through the shadows, squirrels dart across the historic landscape and birds settle among aircraft and woodland shaped by more than a century of human innovation.

This secret life has been captured by 20-year-old Max Williamson, Brooklands Museum’s Content and Digital Officer, whose striking photographs reveal an unexpected world thriving among the icons of British motorsport and aviation.

His images capture fleeting moments most visitors never see: wildlife moving across the old racetrack, birds perched beside structures built for speed and flight, and nature reclaiming the silence when the busy museum day is over.

Max Williamson said:

“During the day, my job is to capture the people, cars and aircraft that bring Brooklands Museum to life. But when everything becomes quiet, you start to notice a completely different side of the site.

“You might see a fox moving across the old racetrack or hear a woodpecker on Test Hill. I love that contrast - this is a place built for machines, speed and innovation, yet nature has made itself at home here too.”

The relationship between nature and innovation at Brooklands is not new. It is rooted in the site’s extraordinary history.

During the Second World War, trees and vegetation were deliberately planted across parts of the famous racetrack to camouflage Brooklands from enemy aircraft.

Hidden beneath the greenery was a hive of activity.

Brooklands was one of Britain’s most important centres of wartime aircraft production, where aircraft including the Hawker Hurricane were built. Nature helped conceal and protect the engineering and innovation taking place below.

More than 80 years later, that story has come full circle.

The landscape that once helped protect Brooklands is now home to wildlife of its own.

Across the Museum’s 32 acres, mature trees, grassland and open skies sit alongside the surviving racetrack, historic buildings and aircraft. It is an extraordinary coexistence: speed and stillness; innovation and ecology; noise and silence.

For the Museum's staff and more than 900 volunteers, these quieter spaces have become important places to pause, reflect and reconnect during the working day. Away from the busy visitor experience, the landscape offers moments of calm, encouraging wellbeing, mindfulness and a chance to step away from screens and immerse themselves in nature, even if only for a few minutes.

It is another reminder that Brooklands is more than a museum. It is a living landscape where history, innovation, people and nature continue to thrive together.

Alex Patterson, CEO of Brooklands Museum, said:

"Max's photographs have captured something that even those of us who know Brooklands well can sometimes overlook. When the crowds leave and the site falls quiet, Brooklands becomes more than an extraordinary collection of historic cars, aircraft and buildings - it reveals itself as a living landscape.

Those quieter moments matter to our people too. For staff and volunteers, stepping away from screens, hearing birdsong instead of engines, and taking a few moments to reconnect with nature has become an important part of wellbeing at Brooklands Museum.

There is something deeply fitting about the fact that nature once helped camouflage and protect this vital centre of wartime innovation and today continues to thrive here. At Brooklands, nature and innovation have grown together for generations."

The timing could hardly be more fitting.

On 7 August 2026, Brooklands will mark exactly 100 years since Britain’s first Grand Prix roared into life on its famous circuit.

A century ago, Brooklands made history through speed. During the Second World War, nature helped hide and protect the innovation taking place here. Today, that same historic landscape is alive in a completely different way.

The racing cars may have left the track. The aircraft factories may have fallen silent.

But Brooklands is still moving. And through the lens of a 20-year-old photographer, a new chapter in the story of the world’s first purpose-built race track is being captured.

At Brooklands, history was made by those who dared to move faster. Now, when the engines fall silent, nature takes pole position.