Guildford Snippets – Do You Know? No.16

Published on: 19 Aug, 2018
Updated on: 14 Aug, 2018

by Nick Bale, Guildford Town Guides

I saw a photograph of Dennis Brother’s factory during the Second World War when browsing one of the displays at Guildford Museum recently.

The picture showed workers assembling Churchill tanks, one of the most numerous and versatile of British tanks.

Dennis Bros factory at Woodbridge.

This prompted me to find about more about tank building. I discovered that there were more than 5,600 Churchill tanks produced during the war. Vauxhall Motors was one of the tank’s designers and its Luton factory was one of the three assembly plants. Dennis Brother’s plant in Woodbridge Hill was another and the third was in Yorkshire.

My question this week is how many Churchill tanks were produced in Guildford, was it:

a. 250?

b. 700?

c. 1,050?

If you know the answer, please leave a reply in the box below. The answer will be given in a week’s time with the next Guildford question.

You can find more about Guildford’s industrial past on the Made in Guildford guided walk on Tuesday, August 21, starting at Tunsgate Arch at 2.30pm.

The answer to last week’s question was P G Wodehouse, who created the character Lord Worplesdon. Worplesdon appears in several Jeeves and Wooster stories, eventually marrying Bertie Wooster’s Aunt Agatha.

Visit www.guildfordwalks.org.uk for further information.

Responses to Guildford Snippets – Do You Know? No.16

Bernard Parke Reply

August 19, 2018 at 5:08 pm

As a small boy, I was terrified by the noise of a tank every Tuesday afternoon as it travelled up the Worplesdon Road on the way to Whitmore Common were it would be sent for testing.
John Lomas Reply

August 19, 2018 at 10:31 pm

According to the Dennis Society 700: “All bus production stopped and the Guildford works set about war production, building 700 Churchill tanks, 4500 army lorries, and 3000 tracked personnel carriers. At this time there was 3000 works staff. A few civilian lorries were produced for the home market and these were fitted with utility design of cabs.”

According to Wiki, the tracked personnel carriers were of the Lloyd Carrier type

Also during the First World War: “The Government subsidy scheme had already begun by 1913 and Dennis submitted the 3-ton lorry for approval. 7,000 were built and other war work comprised pumping sets and a small number of lorries and buses for civilian use and export.”