THE BASKERVILLE'S OF WILTSHIRE c 1700ad
The Baskerville Landau Carriage


Detail of the Coat of Arms on the carriage door

The carriages were discovered in the late 19th
century at Manton Grange in
Marlborough and were removed from there in 1898 by the coach and
harness
manufacturers S. and A. Fuller who displayed them in their
showroom.
They were built in 1698 for the High Sheriff of Wiltshire Thomas
Baskerville
and Fullers hoped that a local museum would be able to accept the
carriages
because of the Wiltshire connections. However none came forward
and they
were transferred to Nottingham Castle Museum in 1920 and
eventually to the
Industrial Museum, after restoration, in the mid 1980s.
S & A Fuller
Ltd of Bath were building carriages from
1737, starting motor body
construction in 1898.
They mounted a few bodies
on Rolls-Royce chassis
between 1910 - 1924 when
they ceased coachbuilding
Email from the Wiltshire County Archivist
Dear Mike, Thank you for the images of the Baskerville
coaches, they look
very impressive. According to a list of Wiltshire sheriffs
published in
Wilts. Arch. Mag. vol3 (1857)Thomas Baskerville of Richardson,
Winterbourne
was sheriff in 1698; an annotation in our copy has Richard as
sheriff in
1736.As you have seen the Baskerville tomb in Winterbourne
Bassett there is
no need for me to send you the transcript in Phillip's Monumental
inscriptions
Steve Hobbs