South Stainley, Yorkshire

[PJGD]

In the History & Press Cuttings (General Press Cuttings) section of this site is an interesting report for "The Motor" magazine from April 1952 written by Laurence Pomeroy recounting his visit to a number of companies including Jowett. For those who don't know, Laurence Pomeroy was perhaps the doyen of motoring writers at the time, and thus from Jowett's perspective he would have been a VIP (also, his father had designed the celebrated 30-98 Vauxhall of the 1920's).

His journey was not as smooth as one would have wished; his Jupiter required a change of head gaskets en route from London which made him late for one of his intermediate appointments. When he did get to the Jowett plant, Grandfield explained to him why head gasket failures were now a thing of the past[!!]. Subsequently, he was entertained to a good lunch by Grandfield and Roy Lunn at an establishment in South Stainley, but on the way back to the plant the Javelin succumbed to drowned-out ignition in a rain storm - not what you would want to happen when trying hard to impress the VIP on board.

Anyway the point of this post is to suggest that the establishment that they took Laurence Pomeroy to was likely a regular location that JCL used for hosting VIP's. Looking at the map, there appears to only be one pub there "The Inn at South Stainley", so this is probably it. Assuming this place has been around since at least the early '50's, then this could be a possible meeting venue for the JCC Northern Section. It could be rather neat to reserve a table there in the name of Jowett Cars and apologize for the 70 year hiatus!