1919-1941 Pioneer House – St. Mary Bourne Motor Services (Tibble and son)

Pioneer House has a long history in the village of St. Mary Bourne, this article is looking at just one period (1919-1941) in its long history! This is the period when it was St. Mary Bourne Motor Services run by Henry Tibble and his son Oliver Reginald “Reg” Tibble.

The Tibble family arrived in St. Mary Bourne between 1915 and 1919, initially just Henry & his wife Frances as Reg was serving with the Army Service Corp as a Lorry Driver in France.

The timeline below shows the services offered by the carriers based in St. Mary Bourne. When Henry Tibble started his business there was just Phillip Titchener running a service. His daughter Frances married Reg Tibble in 1927.

St. Mary Bourne Motor Services

In August 1919 Pioneer House became the home of St. Mary Bourne Motor Services (Tibble and sons), run by Henry & Reg Tibble. With their first official services starting on 1 Mar 1920 as shown in the poster below.

The destinations they offered transport to changed over time, with Winchester not mentioned in any of the available trade directories and by 1931 the destinations are only Andover (daily) & Newbury (3 x per week).

Above are photos of the early buses in their fleet. Their first bus was the one on the left below which was an ex-W.D. Dennis 3.5 ton chassis with a custom built body. It was later joined by the two other vehicles in the photograph on the right. The middle one is an open top 20 seater from c. 1923.

3 May 1935 – There was some drama in the lanes around St. Mary Bourne on this day that affected Reg and also the local Doctor Gerald Lawrence. It seems that Robert Stanley Tombs, a Lorry Driver from Totton wasn’t having a good day. He managed to have two accidents in his lorry first he smashed up the doctors car in Middle Wyke then around midday he smashed 3 panels off of Reg’s bus on Bourne Hill.

The timetable above shows that there was a 7 day a week service between Andover & Stoke. Late pick up times in Andover on a Saturday night at 10:45 pm would have meant people from the parish of St. Mary Bourne could get home from a trip to the flicks in Andover. Maybe they went to The Palace Cinema below…

The early buses continued to be used for sometime, then between 1938 & 1941 they introduced 20 seater Bedford’s. I’ve not come across any photos from this period of the buses used, the follow-up article to this one will have photos of buses after 1941.

Sources

Undated newspaper clipping ‘His “pioneering” days are drawing to a close’. Curtesy of Clive Wedge
Newpaper Clipping “Totton Man in Smashes” from the newspaper collection on FindMyPast.co.uk