Shropshire Star

Unique bus survivor on long road back

Work has begun to restore a 1930s Manchester double decker bus which for years was a makeshift holiday retreat in the Shropshire countryside and is a unique and cherished survivor of the city's pre-war fleet.

Published
The Hamiltons with their acquisition in the 1950s. Picture: Jean Rudd.

The Crossley bus, which was built in 1934 and had the number 436 in service with the Manchester Corporation, is now with the Museum of Transport in Manchester.

By chance, it was the very first of its type to be built.

Initial work removing exterior panels has shown that the structure is not as good as had been hoped. Discussions are taking place with a specialist steel fabricator to manufacture new panels to the original designs.

An appeal has been launched with a target of £100,000 to put this piece of history back on the road.

For years the bus was a holiday retreat at Broome, near Craven Arms

The story of the bus and its years in Shropshire is featured in the latest issue of the magazine of the Greater Manchester Transport Society following research and detective work in which Salopians have helped fill in the missing pieces of the jigsaw.

Mike Shaw of the society tells in the magazine how in the summer of 1950 Craven Arms timber merchant Samuel Spencer bought four retired Manchester buses which were destined for scrap. At the time there was a severe post-war housing shortage.

"Sam's plan to help alleviate the situation was to buy some cheap old double deckers which could then be sold off locally to provide very basic housing," says Mike.

"He had already invested in some second hand single deck buses. They were parked up in the yard of his sawmill and 'had the windows panelled over and a bed chucked in' to provide simple accommodation for some of his workmen."

The double decker buses he bought were standard-bodied Crossley Mancunians dating from 1934, once numbered 497, 495, 481, and with 436 being the oldest of all. The deal being struck, some time later that summer Sam's staff drove the four elderly buses to Shropshire for what would turn out to be a brief stay at his timber yard in the Newington area of the Shropshire town.

Cover story – detective work has pieced together the Shropshire history of a unique Manchester double decker bus

Mike has been able to piece together what happened next thanks in part to information from relatives of Sam, who died around 1959.

"The family told us that Sam sold the buses directly to a number of people who wished to occupy them as homes, or in 436's case for use as a holiday chalet."

All four ex-Manchester buses were located not far from Craven Arms, and it was known that one ended up in the tiny hamlet of Beckjay, close to the Herefordshire border, and owned by a Mr Brindley. Another was on Park Lane, just outside Craven Arms, and lived in by Fred and Betty James, and a third at Horderley, and was believed to have been occupied by a Mr Haywood.

"436 was sold to Wilfred and Gwen Hamilton, who lived in Aston-on-Clun and owned land near the railway approach, in the nearby village of Broome. The couple rented the bus out as a holiday retreat, and it survived in this location for more than two decades, becoming a well-known landmark for rail passengers on the Central Wales line.

"The land on which 436 stood was eventually bequeathed to Keith Rudd, a nephew of the Hamiltons. It was Jean Rudd, Keith's widow, who provided us with an image of the Hamiltons proudly standing on the doorstep of 436.

"The land was sold off for redevelopment in the late 1970s, around the same time that Bob Shaw from Warley acquired the bus for preservation.

"Of the four buses, only 436 managed to survive, the other three having most likely been swept away in occasional council planning department purges of such blots on the local landscape."

The bus was offered to the museum in 2006, and it was taken there on a low loader.

Sam Spencer, far right, with son Charlie alongside, at his timber yard in Craven Arms. Picture: Dave Mulliner.