Transport & Vehicles - Simonds Family Website

Early transport by horse drawn drays was severely limited. The horses could deliver barrels a maximum radius from a Brewery of only around 12 miles in a day. This determined the catchment area of each brewery or later distribution depot. Longer distances had to be covered by canal or by train. Rapidly improving means of transport was a key driving factor in the early consolidation of Breweries. The last working horse drawn dray was retired from its remaining ceremonial role in 1960. Even in 1959, transport remained so limited that H&G Simonds still ran 4 Breweries in its South West England region.

The Simonds Dray Horses were always Greys.

Here are a few images from the archives that graphically display the dramatic change in our transport infrastructure over 100 years. Please do share with me other archives you may find out there:

This lovely clip from the Reading Standard of 1986 was contributed by a visitor to the site:

As was this clip of the Drays on parade in 1958. George Thomson & Alfred Hunt are the drivers.

Here is a later clip from 1996, about the ERP fleet and its characters!

And some archived images:

1880’s Dray outside Griffin Pub in Caversham

1900c Simonds Donkey Cart in Malta [original photo]

1907 Tilshead Camp, Wilts, Dray close up

1907 Dray at Tilshead Camp, Wiltshire – poignant card text

1920’s Dray at Southern Railway bonded store, Reading Station. Date unknown.

1928 Dray Leyland Q-type in Bridge St. yard

1930’s row of ERF trucks at Bridge Street

1930’s Jock Bennet & Truck. Can you tell me about the truck?

1933 Fordson N, rare Golf course model called Jezebel & used to maintain the Sports Club grounds

1950 Geordie Thompson , Alf Hunt and Billy Rose, the taller building to the right was the Electrician’s workshop with the First Aid post below

1950’s David Brown tractor used to shuttle malt from the Maltings in Fobney Street to the Brew house in Bridge Street. Driven by Fred Turner and Fred Cook!

1950’s David Brown Tractor with Simonds built cab, refurbished at Worton Grange

1955 ERF articulated lorry in reading loading bay

1957 Karrier Bantam 50hp 3 ton Dray + Tavern crates Torquay

1958 Tanker aboard HMS Victorious Plymouth

1959 ERF tanker delivering to the Queen Elizabeth. proudly driven by Albert Walter Mason (1899-1973)

1961c Dray in brewery yard + Tinker & Trixie

1960’s Erf Tanker leaving to Martins Brewery in Belgium with a load of Bulldog Pale Ale

1962 ERF tanker Simonds Pale Ale – Belguim

2018 Beau Dray, shown by Eversley Shires is a restored Simonds Dray dated 1903, similar to that show in 1907 above

2025 1/2 scale Steam wagon. Newbury show

The 1/2 scale Foden Steam Wagon, RX23 DVY pictured above has an interesting history: Construction was started in 2016 by a father and son team, 95% completed then steamed twice. The almost complete ‘6 inch’ wagon was sadly then left for seven years in a canvas garage, until an enthusiast met the owner in 2023 at South Cerney. Later that year he purchased the wagon and started the long process of stripping, removing rust, repainting and recommissioning. he had worked as a drayman for the last 25 years of his career and wanted the wagon to be a dray in the livery of local Reading brewery H&G Simonds Ltd (having worked for Courage’s the company that took over H&G Simonds Ltd in 1963) The signwriting has been done on land previously owned by the Simonds family and using archive material. The wagon is driven under its own power to events in the Reading & Wallingford area.

Note that the vehicle registration plates mostly show the letters ‘*DP’ meaning they were first registered in Reading. The 3 letter + 3 number combination plate was abandoned in 1963 when available options started to run out.