GREYFRIARS COACHES OF WINCHESTER The buses of the Matthews family |
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Please note - this is a site of historical record and does not contain current service information |
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The
Greyfriars
business, run by the Matthews family, was to be the last
of the small private firms to run buses into the cathedral city of
Winchester (there were still
eight such operators in 1949). The Owslebury route started in 1921,
operated by a Mr Dovey of that village, with a Ford model T. It was
taken over by Greyfriars in the late 1920s, but the Matthews family had
been
in business for years previously as coachbuilders. Based at
a garage in Eastgate Street, just round the
corner from the main bus departure point in The Broadway with the
statue of King Alfred, the firm was to run two bus routes. The country
route
linked Winchester to Morestead and Owslebury. By the time of the
introduction of
road service licencing in 1931 there was also a short city route
which ran a dozen or so journeys each day from
Broadway to Vale Road and Fivefields Road in the Highcliffe Park
district of
the city. There was a short lived
postwar extension from Owslebury to Upper Upham on Saturdays - this was so in
1949 but had gone by September 1950. The
timetable appears to have been arranged so that, except on
Saturdays, one vehicle usually covered both routes (until an
increase in frequency on the city route to half hourly in 1951). |
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some Greyfriars
Coaches bus tickets (front and rear) |
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The only photo of a Greyfriars vehicle I have been able to trace is here, taken by Peter Gale in 1967, showing JDG967, Leyland PS2/3 (1950) Plaxton FC33F. A video from 2021 can be found on youtube celebrating 100 years of buses to Owslebury. The Greyfriars fleet list can be found here, courtesy of the Solent Omnibus Club |
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Information about working on the buses in Winchester and Southampton is on Bob Mockford's site | ||||||||||
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