QUINTON’S OF SALISBURY

COACHBUILDERS FOR OVER 200 YEARS

My thanks go to Phil Mathews of Wilton who has provided this week’s photograph. The photo shows Mr Matthews with John Quinton, the old coachbuilder, outside Quinton’s workshop in Pennyfarthing Street. Mr Matthews related this interesting account:

“I discovered the Victorian carriage in the photo at Wilsford Manor, then the home of Stephen Tennant. Louis Ford, the last coachman at the manor, showed it to me.

I was friendly with Emma Tennant, Lord Glenconner’s daughter, and she said I should write to her dad to see if I could buy it and restore it.

I did and had a lovely letter back from him saying that neither he, nor his brother Stephen would want to sell it but if I could get it restored they would pay for it and I could have the use of it and keep it at the manor.

I contacted John Quinton, the wheelwright and coach builder in Pennyfarthing Street, Salisbury, and he came out and said he could restore it and re-varnish it.

I borrowed a horse from someone I knew in Gombledon and we drove it to Salisbury one Sunday morning. After it was restored, I bought a horse and used it and on Easter Sunday, when Lord Glenconner and his wife was staying with Emma, I drove the family over the downs towards Stonehenge.

Stephen Tennant died in 1987 intestate, so everything was sold. Sotheby’s valued the carriage for £2000. I entered the bidding but it reached £7000 and was bought by a German for his carriage museum in Leipzig.”

John Quinton was an old-time craftsmen having worked for years as a coach builder and wheelwright in Pennyfarthing Street, the last of a line of craftsmen in a 200 year business. He finally retired in 1976 aged 80 having taken over the business from his father, Arthur Quinton, who died in 1917.

CAPTION – Phil Matthews (left) with his friend and John Quinton with the restored coach.