Excelsior Holidays 320 (A13 XEL) and Wallace Arnold K817 HUM at the Smoke House Inn, Beck Row – 27 Jun 1994 (228-21)

Monday 27 June 1994 – The Smoke House Inn 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.

Left is Excelsior Holidays of Bournemouth 320 (A13 XEL), a Plaxton Première bodied Scania K113CRB new in May 1992.

Right is Wallace Arnold Tours (Devon) Limited K817 HUM, a Van Hool Alizée bodied Volvo B10M new in March 1993. The 1993 intake of coaches to the Wallace Arnold Tours fleet included 25 Van Hool Alizées (K801-825 HUM), 20 Jonckheere Deauvilles (K826-845 HUM) and a mere 5 from Plaxton (4 Premiere 350 K846-849 HUM and 1 Excalibur K850 HUM). Press reports had stated that Wallace Arnold was not happy with the quality of the 1992 deliveries of the then new Premiere and Excalibur models and as a result for 1993 the two Belgian builders got the lion’s share of the orders.