Cheerfully painted in red & cream to a high standard, with matching cream leather & red carpets (in the boot as well) this car is a good example of the sought after ‘long wing’ design number 99, mounted on a 'Big Bore' 4½ litre chassis. The interior woodwork is particularly interesting, being quite plain in terms of the grain, but in 3 shades and with a tasteful satin finish. The car is very sound, with excellent door fits, etc, and is running well. We are currently preparing & servicing it, have fitted five new radial tyres, which suit the car very well, both visually and from a driving point of view, together with new tubes, ready for the road. We have also fitted a new stainless steel rear bumper and over riders, which are excellent! Invoices on file from earlier this year show remedial work, including a clutch overhaul, and together amount to over £10,000 having been spent. The original registration number, OTO 620, instantly gives the car a name!

 Chassis No. B455NY                             Reg No. OTO 620 

Snippets: Lace & Wimbledon & a Caravan

The first owner of B455NY was Stuart Kirkland Fletcher (1897/1963) who in 1915 aged just 18 joined the RAMC and was posted to Mesopotamia, he was the recipient of both the Victory & British Medal for his service during WWI.  The Fletcher family fortune was founded in the machines that they produced for the lace mills and a descendant S.B. Fletcher has written a 250pg book on the Fletcher House of Lace.  One of Stuart’s daughters, Helen Margaret, was an international tennis player and when she started playing the game in 1945 it was as a right-handed player but after falling off a horse in 1946 and breaking her wrist Helen switched to playing with her left and became on the top lefthanded players in the world!  In 1950 she played her first game in Wimbledon and by 1953 she was ranked No. 9 in World Singles and Nr 2 in Great Britain, In 1953 & ’54 she beat the world’s No. 3 Shirley Fry on grass at Manchester. 

By 1961 B455NY was with Major Anthony Richard Carr of Bladgen House in Keevil.  In 1585 Roger Blagden a clothier from Keevil purchased land from Thomas Jones and after Roger Blagden’s death in 1603 his estate was inherited by his heir Roger and the estate remained in the Blagden family until 1807 when the last living relative a Miss Ann Dare left the estate to a John Chamberlaine who in turn left it to his married daughter a Mrs Pooke – in order to accept the bequest Mr. Pooke changed his name by deed poll to Chamberlaine!!  Blagden House was built in the mid 1600s but there are parts of it which can be traced back to the 1400s when it was owned by the wealthy clothier Lawrence Stephens. 

From the 1980s to 2016 B455NY was with Robert Belli of Virsac who being a carpenter had restored his parent’s travelling caravan in which he, along side his 14 siblings was raised!