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Nicholls & Sons
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Henry Nicholls came from Liverpool in 1860 to work for Deane & Son carriage builders of St. Mary’s Square. About 1880 he started his own business as carriage builder and wheelwright in the yard of the Wheatsheaf in Cauldwell Street.
In 1896 he retired and his sons William and Harry built bigger workshops in Melbourne Street where they started building motor bodies. In 1911 they purchased Deane & Sons and moved to St. Mary’s Square. With the growth of motoring it was a natural step from making horse drawn vehicles to cars.
In the early 1960s Bedfordshire County Council required the St. Mary’s site for extensions to Mander College and a new Nicholls garage was opened in Kingsway in 1968 on the site of the Melbourne Street workshop, adjoining the old Wheatsheaf, which was pulled down in the early 1970s and absorbed into a workroom extension. The Nicholls site was closed around 1980 and for a time became a store until in 2000 when it was replaced by a block of housing association flats.
Sources:
- Wildman, Richard and CRAWLEY, Alan Bedford’s Motoring Heritage. 2003.
Nicholls & Sons by Bedfordshire Libraries, 2014
Page last updated: 7th May 2014