Reliance Coaches

This Company has been in the news lately and started its life in the 19th century from Tower Hill House in Tower Hill, Chaddleworth. I am reliably informed that the original garage at Tower Hill House that had sliding doors contained two carts (Mrs Zoe Ingram who once owned this house allowed me to re build an Austin 1800 in this very garage in the early eighties). These carts were pulled by horses and used for transporting passengers and goods in the local area.

Moving on, this site became too small for what was a burgeoning business and James Hedges, the owner, moved to Brightwalton. James’s elder son George took over the business when he returned home from service in the First World War.

Reliance Motor Services, as they became known, was one of the UK’’s most respected independent bus and coach operators. In the days before most families had cars, country buses made it possible for local people to travel to work, to school and for leisure.

During the Second World War Reliance carried on under huge pressures and made it possible for women to get to work in local wartime factories and munitions depots.

One such company was J. Elliot and Sons of Newbury that made the wings for Horsa gliders that flew from RAF Welford during the D-Day landings in 1944. I have a chair at home dated 1916 that is stamped with J Elliot and sons that came out of The Ibex public house.

When Reliance finally closed in 1985 half its remaining fleet was sold to operators in Malta.

On Saturday, the 25th September, an original Reliance Bedford bus came through Chaddleworth during a trip of nostalgia from Newbury to Brightwalton. Please enjoy the photographs from this great event.

Grahame Murphy