Ruth's Blog

The last blog post featured documents given to us by Mrs Iversen in Australia.  Here’s another gem from her – it’s a brochure showing eight designs of vehicles made in the Richardson coach works in Northgate.  The brochure is undated but must have been produced in the early 1900s.

The impressive vehicle in the first image is not named, and I am grateful to Jeremy Masterson of the Remington Carriage Museum for identifying it as a Victoria.  Being a Panel-Boot Victoria, the forward portion of the body has a panelled driver’s seat, framed to the body proper, with a straight, conventional dash standing in front of the seat.  This model has C-springs.

The Victoria (named after Queen Victoria) was a fashionable style of phaeton for ladies.  Even though the brochure has become very tatty, I do appreciate the illustration showing the two ladies being transported elegantly along by their coachman, with the spire of St James’ Church in the background.

The second, much smaller vehicle is helpfully labelled as a Governess Car.  Its distinguishing feature is a small tub body, with two inward-facing seats, and access through a door at the back.  Designed for a single pony, governess cars or ‘carts’ were often used by a governess (hence the name), or possibly a mother, to take the children out for a drive.

The Richardson shop was in Northgate just to the west of the lane leading to Spout Yard, and the workshop areas were behind this.  When motor vehicles began to take over from horse-drawn carriages, they responded to the change and started to build and repair motor cars.

In 1923, by which time the Richardson business was primarily concerned with motor vehicles, a stocktaking inventory shows they still had a secondhand Victoria.

Do come to our photographic exhibition from 26 July to 7 October 2023, where you can see new and old photos of the Richardson coach works, along with photos of many other shops and pubs in Louth.