The Hotel 1910, Church Stretton

The Hotel Garage

The Hotel 1910
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My grandfather Bert Hedger managed the garage attached to The Hotel during the late 1920s. It belonged to Phillip West who was a mill owner from Manchester and was managed by his sister-in-law Lillian Harker. It was a five star hotel and all the best people stayed there. A lot of famous racing drivers from the 1920s stayed there for the Shelsby Walsh hill trials, including Wolf Banato of Bentley's and also Freddie Field of Bugatti's - he would stock up with 2 gallon tins of aviation spirit and tins of pure benzene. The autumn meet would fill the place with racing cars. The drivers or their mechanics would arrive at 8.00 in the morning to warm their engines up and would rev them for 5-10 minutes at a time. Petrol was sold at 1/- per gallon and punctures were repaired for 2/6d. Warming up the engines resulted in a lot of complaints from the local townsfolk.
Grandpa remembers one old gentleman of 70 years of age, Fred Platt,... Read more