Brewers Build a "Crow that flies" —on a 5-tonner
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SOMEWHAT less than a hundred miles from the Mortlake premises of Vv-atney Combe Reid and Co., Ltd., a well-known Warwickshire poet wrote:—
The ornament of beauty is suspect, A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air."
The "Crow Inn." which played a prominent part in the pageant at the Royal Show, Bristol,was certainly suspect: it was erected by the brewer's bodyshop men at Mortlake on a Thornycroft Nippy 5-ton chassis arid arrived at the showground under its own power.
The inn was a ila-th scale model of the ' Old Crow," Brentry, Glos. an Eliza
bethan house taken over by Watney's in 1955. It was displayed, complete with a replica of the original inn sign, horse trough and exterior swinging lantern, but unhappily, without the amenities with which one :associates the public house. Later developments foreseen by the brewers, however, will rectify this omission.
Designed by Watney's transport manager, Mr. John Lemmer, and executed by the company's bodybuilders largely from scrap material, the mobile inn, folded for the road, measures 14 ft. long by 15 ft. high and extended for the showground 18 ft. 6 in. long, and 11 ft. wide. It falls well within the limits laid down by the Ministry of Transport for vehicles using the public highway.
The walls of the inn are built up from hardboard, braced with wood, in the Gloucestershire half-timbered manner. For display, they are supported at ground level by manually operated jacks, and, on the "upper floor" by wooden joists. The ground-floor windows, including a detachable bay, are of Perspex giving a leaded diamond effect. The upper 'windows are constructed from mica. The side walls are retractable on cantilever steel arches, the narrower end walls being removable. Two large dormers on the upper floor are folding and detachable and all removable parts are carried on the vehicle.
The realistic effect of plastering on the exterior walls has been achieved by coating the.hardboard with glue on which sawdust has been cast. The roof consists of strips of felt glued together and insulated throughout with waterproofing lacquer to present the effect of tiling. Gutter down pipes are lengths of rubber tubing recovered from the brewery. The detachable twin-stack chimney at the rear of the vehicle was built up from expended paint pots. An attractive interior is simulated by .a roll-up painted drop-cloth.
The ground floor front wall of the "Old Crow •' is detachable to give the driver an uninterrupted view of the road. A later version of the inn will be larger and will include an-archway large enough to allow the passage of a coach and four, a form of transport which, on occasion. supplements Watney's fleet of 1,000 vehicles.
The mobile inn arrived at Bristol in excellent trim. Bridge restrictions added some 17 miles to the shortest route.