At the former military museum at Fort Paull, near Hull, a group of volunteers, mainly ex RAF and Army, are beavering away to dismantle the world’s last Beverley Blackburn, ahead of a permanent move north.

The team from the Solway Aviation Museum have big plans for the colossal plane – their “Angel of the North” – which they say should be visible from a 10-mile radius at her new home at Carlisle Airport.

They stepped in after Beverley XB259 looked in danger of being scrapped, after being partially dismantled three years ago and they’ve had huge public support from an appeal – raising £70,888 so far.

The last of only 49 built at Brough in East Yorkshire, the heavy-lift aircraft were used for troop and cargo transport by the Royal Air Force until 1967.

Big Bev being readied for her permanent move up north, Fort Paull, May 15 2024

The team has to break “Big Bev” down into manageable 19ft wide sections, so it can be transported to Cumbria – no mean feat when you consider that that the wing measures 85ft from one end to the other.

The wing will come off in one piece and then be split into two on the ground – so it and the fuselage can be craned over the walls of Fort Paull and onto the back of low loaders, sometime later this summer.

However that’s just the prelude for another mammoth task - reassembling the giant plane and then repainting in her original silver and white RAF livery – with perhaps “Made in Yorkshire” painted on the side.

Volunteer Dougie Beresford, who is using pliers to get a rivet out of a panel – there’s over 100,000 rivets to be removed – says he loves good British engineering. “It’s so well built you can’t believe it – when you look inside it’s built like a tank.

Volunteer Dougie Beresford getting rivets out one by one: "If he's still here at Christmas, he can do Santa as well"

"We are very lucky to be getting it. We’ll have it in our little airport for everybody to see – it will be the Angel of the North for Carlisle.

"What we are going to do is position it so it will be visible from a 10-mile radius. It will attract us a lot of visitors. I think in two years it will be immaculate.”

The museum’s chair Dougie Kerr said there had been amazing gestures of generosity, including a private individual in Kent donating £20,000 to pay for the purchase of the plane. Hull haulage contractors Spear Services are donating a wagon and forklift to help the move the aircraft to Cumbria having read the story in The Yorkshire Post.

The volunteers are now on the hunt for a supplier of sandbags to support the fuselage. "It should leave Fort Paull by the summer,” said Mr Kerr. “But if you start rushing things you’ll get it wrong.

The volunteers have their work cut out on the mammoth plane

"When it gets back up to Carlisle it will still be left in bits and it will then have to be reassembled.

"Someone asked us if we could put ‘made in Yorkshire’ so we’re thinking of approaching Yorkshire Tea to see if they want to sponsor us.”

Some of the aluminium used in the plane, which was built in 1952, is getting fragile and it’ll probably have to be X-rayed for cracks before visitors can start climbing inside to view its vast interior.

Big Bev was the first off the production line at Brough. She never saw squadron service with the RAF but was kept by Blackburn Aircraft and used for tests and modifications.

To donate visit https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/dougie-kerr.

Blackburn Beverley: Volunteers from tiny Cumbria museum at Fort Paull dismantling last iconic aircraft