WRIGHTS
OF
LOUTH
Operating
across the Wolds of Lincolnshire in days long gone by
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Please note this is a
site of historical record and does not contain current service
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Lying
in the valley of the river Lud the historic market town of Louth is
recognised as the capital of the Lincolnshire Wolds. It was there
in 1925 that two brothers Fred and Alf Wright set up in the motor bus
business. The first vehicle acquired by Wright Brothers was a
second-hand 14-seater Renault and after some initial uncertainties
their first bus routes appear to have been from Louth
to Lincoln and from Louth via Saltfleetby to Mablethorpe (Charles
Barker of
Mablethorpe's 'Grayscroft' service was also running on this road since
1924 and continues to this day). By 1927 the Wright fleet had become
six
vehicles and six routes, but it appears that in August 1926 Alf
had withdrawn from the partnership with his brother and been replaced
by Mr E Kemp, the owner of
the East Lincolnshire Motor Company. His fresh injection of capital
ensured that by 1930 there were thirty buses in the fleet.
The August
1929 timetable
booklet issued by the Lincolnshire Chronicle exhorted passengers "for
night travelling look for the illuminated W". It lists Wright's
routes as including Lincoln - Woodhall Spa - Tattershall - Boston (4
times a day); Louth - Alford - Spilsby (also 4 times a day); Louth -
Wragby - Lincoln (3 times a day); and Louth - Horncastle - Bardney -
Lincoln (4 times a day).
After its
opening in 1934 special services were operated to the motor racing
circuit at Cadwell Park (established by
Mansfield Wilkinson of Louth). The seaside
routes to Mablethorpe were important to Wrights and in 1936 the
competing Grayscroft service from Mablethorpe to Louth was expanded to
serve the RAF at Manby and this resulted in many traffic commissioners’
court battles as Wrights were unhappy with the other service taking
away some of their business in and around Louth.
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Pages
from an early Wrights timetable, possibly later than the 1929 booklet
mentioned above as the Spilsby service has reached Boston.
(Reproduced with thanks
from the Lincolnshire Vintage Vehicle Society collection)
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Over
the years the
network of Wright's Bus Services routes expanded considerably across
this part of Lincolnshire reaching
Market Rasen, Horncastle, Lincoln, Boston and Sleaford - as shown in
the map below - and the red and cream buses became a familiar sight
around these parts of the county. By 1931 the
majority of the routes set out in the 1950 table below were already in
operation. It was a network of daily bus services between the several
market towns of East Lincolnshire - Louth, Alford and Horncastle -
linking them to nearby villages and to key destinations such as
Lincoln, Mablethorpe and Boston.
Coupling private hire and
excursion work to the bus routes, growth continued and by the middle of
the 1930s this was a significant business with some thirty five
vehicles and a hundred
staff. Significant parcel and
newspaper carrying developed. Additional
depots were
established in Sleaford and in Lincoln (in the yard of the Adam and Eve
on Lindum Hill, opposite the
medieval Pottergate Arch in the shadow of the cathedral, and reputedly the oldest tavern in Lincoln dating back to
1701). Nine buses were based there in 1947. The
Lincoln city terminus used by Wrights was Unity Square, whilst in
Sleaford it was Cropley's Yard off Eastgate.
Restrictions on private motoring during the war encouraged increased
use of buses and the RAF airfield at Manby near Louth
provided plenty
of wartime work. Two second-hand Maudsley double deckers had come into
the fleet pre-war. During the
extended snowfall of winter 1947 almost everything came to a halt for
six
weeks and
the roof of the Louth garage collapsed onto twenty buses. Times
were to prove more difficult in the austerity of
post-war years and profitability declined, resulting in the sale of the
business with thirty four vehicles by Wright
and Kemp to Lincolnshire Road Car in June
1950 (Road Car, founded in 1928, was nationalised in 1948 as part of
the Tilling group of companies).
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Map of routes 1938 (left) and cover of 1950
timetable booklet (above)
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With thanks to Peter
White's 1974 book "Passenger Transport in Lincoln" this
is the list of routes that were operated by Wright's when their
operations were taken over by
the Lincolnshire Road Car (LRC) in 1950:
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Wright's routes 1950
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LRC Number
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Frequency
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LRC alterations up to
1974
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Mablethorpe - Manby -
Louth - Wragby - Lincoln
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10A
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Daily
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Alford - Manby - Lincoln
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10B
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Daily
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Louth - Donington - Lincoln
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10C / 10D
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Daily
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withdrawn 1973
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Bardney - Lincoln
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10E
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Daily
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ceased 1959
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Louth - Saltfleet -
Mablethorpe
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48
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Daily
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Boston - Woodhall Spa -
Horsington - Bardney - Lincoln
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8A
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Daily
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cut to Boston - Horsington
1958
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Louth - Reston - Alford -
Spilsby - Boston
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61A
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Daily
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renumbered 61 in 1973
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Louth - Burwell - Spilsby
- Boston
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61
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Daily
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withdrawn 1973
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Louth - Spilsby - Old
Bolingbroke - Boston
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61B
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Wed and Sat
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withdrawn 1973
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Boston - Hubbards Bridge -
Swineshead - Sleaford
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36B
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Daily
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withdrawn 1971
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Sleaford - Tattershall -
Horncastle - Louth
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47
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Sun, Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat
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severely cut
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Lincoln - Lissington -
Market Rasen
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3A
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Tue, Fri, Sat
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reduced to Friday and
Saturday
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Lincoln - Cherry
Willingham - Reepham
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6A
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Daily
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Lincoln - Cherry
Willingham - Fiskerton
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6B
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Daily
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Lincoln - Cherry
Willingham - Reepham - Fiskerton
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6C
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Daily
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Lincoln - Fiskerton -
Brookside
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6D
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Friday
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withdrawn
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Louth - Furze Lane - Manby
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46
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Daily
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withdrawn 1971
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gratefully
incorporating
information from articles and publications found
in Lincoln Central Library
including
by A Tye and P R White (notably the February / March 1971 issue
of Lincoln Transport Review)
A more detailed history of Wrights buses
1925 to 1950, written in 1999 by Fred Wright's son,
can be found on the Wright family
website
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