Last updated: 18 October 2017

During my last feature in August, I focused on a photograph of Harvey Tutt's Enterprise fleet lined up in Clarence Square in Gosport.  It was the acquisition of Tutt's business in July 1924 and, shortly afterwards, the motor bus business of Hubert Smith that enabled Hants & Dorset Motor Services to establish a foothold in Gosport, from which its Eastern Area developed.  For that reason and to follow on neatly, I have selected from the Society's archive an early Gosport-related Hants & Dorset image as the subject of this month's feature.

The photograph (reference PS02425-059) is one of a large number of digital images generously donated to the Society by Fred York and held in our archive on DVD/CDROM.  It shows Leyland TD1 registration TK 2594 inside Hants & Dorset's Gosport depot in Little Beach Street, probably during the early to mid-1930s.  The TD1 was new to Hants & Dorset in April 1929 and carried fleet number 100 (later E100) on its Leyland L27/24RO bodywork.  It was one of Hants & Dorset's first batch of lowbridge double-deckers which featured a sunken gangway along the side of the upper saloon.  Having survived the Second World War, the bus was re-bodied by Beadle in January 1946, again with a lowbridge body but with L26/26R layout.  Following re-numbering to 915 in January 1950, TK 2594 was withdrawn in September 1951 and subsequently sold to Potteries Motor Transport via a dealer in Salford.  The Beadle body was transferred to an ex-Ribble Leyland TD5 and the chassis was scrapped in 1952.

Hants & Dorset's Gosport depot was less long-lived.  Having been acquired to accommodate Leyland G7 double-deckers in the late 1920s, the depot in Little Beach Street served the company until it was destroyed by a direct hit from a German bomber in January 1941.  Two buses were also destroyed during the raid and, although there were no fatalities, one company employee was badly injured.

As always, any members (or non-members) with similar items/images that they would like to donate to the Society are requested to make contact using the following e-mail address: ProvSocArchive@gmail.com.

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