Wallace Arnold N205 UWY at the Smoke House Inn, Beck Row – Wc 22 April 1996 (308-11) (1)

The 1996 intake of coaches to the Wallace Arnold Tours fleet included 51 Plaxton bodied Volvo B10M coaches (N201-252 HWX except for N222 HWX) and two Caetano Optimo small coaches (N253-254 HWX). As far as I am aware this was the total for the year somewhat lower in the previous few years. For a number of years Wallace Arnold added around 50-60 new coaches each Spring. Approximate numbers of new coaches were 1990 (54), 1991 (61), 1992 (55), 1993 (50), 1994 (65) and 1995 (35).

Week commencing 22 April 1996 - The Smoke House Inn at Beck Row near Mildenhall was rather popular with a number of different tour companies large and small using it as a base for their five day tours to different East Anglian tourist spots like Cambridge, Constable Country, Norfolk Broads, Suffolk Villages etc. The coaches tended to arrive on Monday afternoons and leave on Friday mornings. The handwritten window label simply shows ‘Cambridge’ but normally the tours were either ’Cambridge and Constable Country’ or ‘Cambridge and Suffolk Villages’ tour. If the tour was just ‘Cambridge’, which I suspect it wasn’t, I would have been rather disappointed to find the hotel was some twenty 26 miles outside the city!

Wallace Arnold Tours N205 HWX M115 UWY, a Plaxton Premiere 350 bodied Volvo B10M new in May 1996, was parked at the Smoke House. Wallace Arnold was formed in 1926 and so in 1996 the company marked the 70th anniversary by showing the dates beneath the garter scroll on the entrance door and panel below the cab window.