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The North Cornwall Coach Company Ltd
Michael Messenger
authorised Bodmin branch. Worse, the C&DCR had
outbid the CR to acquire the Bodmin & Wadebridge
Railway (B&WR) which both railways intended to
extend to Padstow. Left without an Act but owning a
railway the C&DCR persuaded a reluctant London
& South Western Railway to take the B&WR off
their hands.
Wadebridge had always had stronger links to
Exeter, via Launceston, than to Plymouth. The main
road out of Cornwall passed through Camelford to
Launceston and was the route taken by Russell’s
stage waggons between London and Falmouth and
by the mail coaches. A rail link in the same direction
had been proposed as early as 1835 and other similar
When the broad-gauge Cornwall Railway (CR) —
Brunel built and Great Western backed — eventually
opened its main line from Plymouth to Truro in 1859,
having been authorised in 1844, it took a route close
to the southern coast. Its great rival, which was
beaten in the parliamentary battle, was the Cornwall
& Devon Central Railway (C&DCR). Backed by the
London & South Western Railway it had been
intended to run from Exeter north of Dartmoor and
pass through Launceston to travel down the spine
of Cornwall. The then county town, Bodmin, and
nearby Wadebridge, had supported the central route
and their dismay at losing it was not helped by the
Cornwall Railway’s lack of funds to build the
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line openings, and the first coach was cheered
through.2 The Royal Cornwall Gazette carried the
following verse:
suggestions were made in the 1840s. As the L&SWR
gradually spread westwards, W R Galbraith, the
South Western’s consulting engineer, surveyed a line
in 1863 from Launceston to Wenford on the B&WR
but it did not proceed, probably as a result of the
Overend & Gurney failure. Another line of Galbraith’s
was authorised in 1872 but this was part of a larger
scheme involving the Cornwall Minerals Railway
(CMR) and when this line fell into the hands of the
GWR the whole scheme crumbled.
Wadebridge and the north coast of Cornwall were
very disappointed with the failure to gain a rail link
to Exeter. The impecunious Cornwall Railway was
under constant criticism for the poor standard of its
services and the north coast towns felt neglected by
it. To fill the gap a coach service was proposed with
the specific aim of being a feeder to the L&SWR
until a rail line was built. A meeting was held in
Camelford early in July 1875 with the result that the
North Cornwall Coach Company was formed.1 George
Martyn was the instigator of the scheme. Aged only
30 in 1875, he was a farmer of 100 acres near Camelford
and had a reputation as a successful livestock
breeder. The South Western had reached Lidford, as
it was then spelt, in 1874, to make a junction with the
broad-gauge Launceston & South Devon Railway
by means of the Devon & Cornwall Railway from
Okehampton. A third rail gave them access to
Plymouth. The coach, a four-in-hand, was to run from
Wadebridge to Launceston where passengers would
travel by the L&SDR to Lidford and there join the
L&SWR trains. Archibald Scott, the L&SWR general
manager, was said to be sufficiently enthusiastic to
promise £5 a week towards the running costs. No
doubt he could see an opportunity not only to tap a
new district but also to test it as a future railway
route. The following year the East Cornwall Coach
was also given a subsidy, albeit not so
enthusiastically, to run a coach from Liskeard through
Callington to connect with trains at Tavistock.
The North Cornwall Coach first ran on 1 September
1875 and by then the route had been extended.
Starting at St Columb at 8.30 a.m. the ‘Pioneer’ left
Wadebridge at 10.00 a.m., Camelford at 11.30 and
reached Launceston in time for the 2 p.m. train to
Lidford, where passengers changed for Exeter and
Waterloo. A connection left Padstow at 8 a.m. for
Wadebridge. The return left Launceston at 4.15 p.m.,
after the connection from the 9 a.m. from Waterloo
and reached Wadebridge at 8 p.m. There was much
local enthusiasm for the link. Camelford was decorated
with arches and banners, much in the way of railway
I hurrah for the road, and the North Cornwall Coach!
And the pluck of the men who have horsed it,
May its course be but short (not by way of reproach),
But soon stopped when a Railway has crossed it.3
The North Cornwall Coach Company Ltd was
incorporated later in the month, on 13 September,
and its capital was set at £2,000, in 400 shares of a
nominal value of £5.4 An appeal had been made for
funds local to the area to be served by the coach and
all the shares were taken up. More than threequarters of the 176 shareholders lived along the route
and 55% only held one share. Only nine held ten
shares and the rest held six or less. As well as the
usual gentry and professional people there were
innkeepers, saddlers, merchants and coach builders.
One interesting name was W R Galbraith who held
ten shares. The chairman of the company was J W
Batten, a London barrister who was later to be the
chairman of the Devon & Cornwall Railway.
For the winter of 1875 the coach was replaced by a
four-horse bus, also called ‘Pioneer’. The service
appears to have been profitable from the start as the
directors and shareholders were pleasantly surprised
at the first AGM in January 1876. Initially only £3
had been called up on the shares (later increased to
£4), giving a paid-up capital of £1,200, and it was
said they had a return of 20% on this. Ambitiously
there was now talk of running coaches to Truro and
Liskeard. The ‘great satisfaction of the authorities at
Waterloo’ was noted. The L&SWR were advertising
the service nationally and through rail and coach
tickets were available.5 At the end of 1876 they
increased the subsidy to £50 a month, backdating it
to the start of the service.6 A few months later they
made a gratuity of £50 towards new horses.
The Cornwall Minerals Railway had opened its line
for minerals from Fowey to Newquay in 1874 and on
20 June 1876 commenced a passenger service. On
that day the coach ran on beyond St Columb to
Halloon station (later St Columb Road) with 24
passengers for Newquay. From then on the coach
met the first up train from Newquay and the return
trip terminated there at 9.30 p.m. The standard gauge
CMR had been leaning towards the South Western
camp but the utter failure of its expected iron-ore
traffic drove it to sell out to the GWR in 1877. It is not
recorded but the Great Western would not have taken
kindly to its traffic being creamed off to the South
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£1,912 whilst goods and parcels generated income
of £389. A dividend of 5% was declared and this was
the usual sum for many years. It was claimed the
dividend could be quadrupled but for the turnpike
tolls. The directors had been agitating for
a third rail to be laid on the L&SDR from
Lidford to Launceston but the GWR were,
not surprisingly, being obstructive.7 A few
months later it was claimed that the
L&SWR considered diverting the coach
to their newly opened Holsworthy station
instead of Launceston but that would have
meant a very lengthy run from Camelford.
The GWR responded to the diversion of
traffic to the L&SWR by arranging for
through tickets from Padstow to anywhere
on their system but the ‘Pioneer’ remained
popular and preferable to a series of horsebuses to Bodmin Road on the Cornwall
Railway. The Padstow traffic was growing
and the coach was briefly extended there
L&SWR advertisement promoting the North and East
for the summer season.
Cornwall coaches. Daily News 1 June 1876
The North Cornwall Railway (NCR)
obtained its Act in 1882 for a line from the
Directors were elected from the towns along the Bude branch at Halwill Junction to Launceston and
route; St Columb, Wadebridge, Camelford and then by way of Camelford to Wadebridge. Nominally
Launceston. Each was responsible for stabling and independent but backed by the L&SWR this
purchasing of fodder in his town. The horses were proposal was to provide the rail link that Wadebridge
changed at the intermediate stops of Wadebridge town had so long called for. W R Galbraith was the
and Camelford and this would give runs of 8, 11 and Engineer and construction started soon so that
17 miles between stages. Staging points were the Launceston was reached in July 1886. The coach
Red Lion, St Columb; Commercial Hotel, Wadebridge; company was doing well meanwhile; fodder was
King’s Arms, Camelford. A complaint from a cheap and the turnpikes had been abolished, making
shareholder about the cost of fodder brought the considerable savings. A dividend of 5% was paid
response that the horses had to run long distances consistently each year.
so needed the best food. Fodder was the company’s
biggest expense. George Martyn, managing director,
had been to London to buy horses and by all
accounts had bought well. The company were always
noted for the quality of their horses. As well as the
coach and horse-bus a wagonette was operated and
at peak times more wagonettes had to be hired.
Martyn was also good at selecting staff. Tom Carlyle
soon became the driver, having had experience of
buses and carriers vans operating out of St Columb.
He had been a coachman at Tregothnan for Lord
Falmouth and his driving prowess was often noted.
The guard from the outset was ‘Charlie’ Soper who
The ‘Pioneer’ horse-bus at Wadebridge station
was soon known for his geniality and musical ability
sometime after 1895. This was a winter service
on the horn!
when three horses sufficed.
At the AGM in 1878 it was reported that 7,160
(Peter Tuthill Collection)
passengers had been carried, yielding income of
Western at Lidford and one suspects the through
ticketing to Newquay ceased soon after. A few years
later the coach was running through to Newquay
itself, at least in the summer season.
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In May 1887 the GWR opened their standard-gauge
branch from Bodmin Road to Bodmin and on 3
September 1888, the L&SWR having rebuilt the
primitive B&WR, GWR trains began to run to
Wadebridge. The complete lack of an opening
ceremony and the quiet reception of the new service
was put down at the time to the town’s dislike of the
GWR, but despite that the GWR quickly gained the
traffic from Wadebridge and Padstow. The latter town
boomed as a result and within a few years up to ten
horse-buses a day ran each way to Wadebridge. The
GWR also made agreements with hoteliers and
carriers for connecting services to Padstow and, later,
Port Isaac and Boscastle.8 The North Cornwall Coach,
in the meantime, was reported as running empty on
the stage to Camelford.
Making up for the loss of passenger traffic the
coach company started picking up goods traffic,
particularly ‘dead meat’ and produce, with the
encouragement of the L&SWR. As well as the coach
to Launceston luggage vans ran on alternate days
but ‘large heavy waggons’ were used for the new
traffic.9 It was suggested that L&SWR rates were
cheaper than GWR.
Construction of the NCR was proceeding and it
opened to Tresmeer on 28 July 1892. The coach
diverted to the new station as it did to Camelford the
following year when the NCR reached there, on 14
August 1893. Despite the cost of removing the
stables, first to Tresmeer and then to Camelford, a
profit was made as tourist traffic had doubled. To
meet the rapidly increasing traffic during the summer
months - July to September - the route was extended
to Newquay. A suggestion that it should run to
Padstow in the winter months was turned down as
not being economical. The coach itself was beginning
to be a tourist attraction in its own right. Always
smartly turned out, it had a reputation for reliability
and punctuality. The politeness of the coachman and
guard was frequently noted; ‘uncommonly civil and
obliging’. Despite the 1893 profit a loss was made
the following year and the L&SWR Traffic Committee
voted £100 to the company.
With the approach of the railway towards
Wadebridge the company’s annual general meetings
were taken up more and more by discussions of the
future. When the railway opened the raison d’etre
of the coach would cease and some wanted to wind
it up whilst others thought alternate routes could be
found. Tapping the L&SWR’s long held wish to reach
Truro they thought the coach could run there.
Attempts to get a subsidy from Truro Town Council
Announcement of the start of the Newquay service
from 1 July 1895.
Royal Cornwall Gazette 27 June 1895
were unsuccessful but after South Western trains
reached Wadebridge on 1 June 1895 a Truro service
was launched. Starting on 3 June, the ‘Pioneer’ coach
left Wadebridge at 6.20 p.m., after arrival of the 11 am
from Waterloo, and reached Truro at 9.40 p.m. The
following morning at 9.15 a.m. it left the Royal Hotel
and arrived at Wadebridge in time for the 1.15 p.m. to
Waterloo. As the Great Western were reaching Truro
from Paddington in less than ten hours, without
changing to a coach, it is not surprising that the
results were ‘disappointing’ and the service did not
last a month, ceasing on 30 June.
In its place the Newquay service was re-instated
but now travelling via Padstow and Mawgan to the
Atlantic Hotel. This may have been limited to the
summer of 1895 only as later the service reverted to
the old route via St Columb. In any event it would
not have survived the extension of the NCR to
Padstow in 1899. The coach left Wadebridge each
evening at 6 p.m., 5 p.m. in the summer months, and
reached Newquay some 2½ hours later. The return
left Newquay at 10 a.m. each morning and the service
was timed to connect with the fast trains to and from
Waterloo. This became a year round service.
After 24 years as guard of the ‘Pioneer’ Charlie
Soper in 1900 emigrated with his family to New
Zealand. A brief ceremony at St Columb presented
him with a purse of money and ‘hearty good wishes’.
Perhaps surprisingly the service survived the Great
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War, although in 1919 the Newquay terminus was in
Fore Street, rather than the grander Atlantic Hotel.
However the age of motor transport was fast
approaching. A loss of £71 was made in the year
ended 30 June 1919 and, whilst no reason is given, a
special resolution to wind up the company was
passed on 13 March 1920.10 The net assets of the
until the following day, when they will make the return
journey. The change was very smartly done, only a
very few minutes elapsing, because it was ‘touch and
go’ whether we could catch the last train from Halloon
to Newquay, for which we had two lady passengers.
But our ‘whip’ was equal to the occasion, and with
another smart crack of the whip, and a fresh team, we
were soon at the Fair-Park end of St. Columb, passing
the ‘dry’ reservoir, and down over Trekenning-hill,
past its fine old shady elms, and on past Rosewastis
before we could catch all the old familiar points of the
route. Next we pass Black Cross and Killiworgie, to
the hill just below Halloon, when someone shouts,
‘There she comes’, which was the Great Western
Railway train gliding around the horseshoe curves
just into the station. Some four or five hundred yards
of hill had yet to be covered between the coach and
the station, and the betting was 10 to 1 that the train
would be off again before we could show our noses.
Now for a race. The whip and guard of the North
Cornwall coach never like to be beaten, and certainly
not on their own first run to Halloon (though if they
had been, the fault would not have been theirs, but
that of the London and South-Western Railway train
at Wadebridge, or rather the Bank-Holiday
excursionists). Crack went the whip again - but not
cutting - ‘Up! up! up!’ shouted Carlysle; the horses
understood him, and went for it at a smart gallop.
Charlie, not unmindful, sounded a regular ‘Tantivy’
on his horn, until the valley re-echoed it, and when
we reached the station precincts, there was our good
friend Rice, the Great Western Railway guard, with
his train standing still, the engine blowing off steam,
and a broad grin on his face at our excitement.13
The ‘Pioneer’ four-in-hand
in Beacon Road, Newquay about 1905
(Cornish Studies Library)
company were in excess of £1,500 and George Martyn
was still managing director, now aged 75. The
Newquay Charabanc Company, trading as ‘Pioneer’,
took over the route on 16 January 1920 but by 1924/
5 were in voluntary liquidation.11 A trade directory of
1923 shows a motor omnibus from Fore Street,
Newquay, at 9.30 a.m. and returning about 8.30 p.m.,
the same timings as the coach. The booking office
was the Central Motor Company. By 1926 the HardyColwell motor omnibus was running daily.12 The
coaching era was over.
In 1875 the new coach route was hailed as rare
event. Omnibuses and coaches plying over short
distances were by then common-place but a new
route covering some 36 miles was remarkable. Its
raison d’etre ceased after 20 years but even more
remarkable was the North Cornwall Coach’s survival
for a further 25 years after that. A great deal of
sentiment is expressed for the ‘good old days’ of
coaching but the following account of part of the
first journey of the ‘Pioneer’ to Truro on 3 June 1895
does convey something of the atmosphere of the
horse-drawn era.
References:
1. Royal Cornwall Gazette 14 August 1875
2. Royal Cornwall Gazette 21 August 1875, 4 September
1875
3. Royal Cornwall Gazette 11 September1875
4. The National Archives (TNA), BT31/14538/9847
5. Daily News 1 June 1876; Morning Post 22 June 1876
6. TNA, RAIL 411/245 L&SWR Traffic Committee
minutes 16 November 1876, 30 November 1876
7. Royal Cornwall Gazette 1 November 1878
8. Wiltshire & Swindon Archives, GWR records.
9. Royal Cornwall Gazette 18 December 1890
10. TNA, BT31/14538/9847
11. Archivist, West Country Historic Omnibus &
Transport Trust
We pull up at the old Red Lion [St Columb], where
the horses are changed, a first rate team of bays taking
the place of those that had brought us on so well from
Wadebridge, and had fairly earned their feeds and rest,
12. Kelly’s Directory of Cornwall 1923
13. West Briton 3 June 1895
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