On June 26 a party of society members visited the Alexander Dennis factory in Guildford. Arriving, on Leyland National No1, we were greeted by our host & guide for the afternoon, Paul Offer, ADL’s Export Sales manager.

After “tea & biscuits” Roger Heard, who began work at Dennis in 1963 as an apprentice and retired 40 years later as Sales & Marketing director, gave the group an overview of the company’s history since 1895, illustrating the progress made from making bicycles in a former barracks to today’s modern bus assembly plant. The story involved three moves to newer premises and products ranging from tricycles to tanks via lawn mowers, cars dust-carts & fire engines, buses featured somewhere in the tale as well!

Paul followed this with a talk on today’s operations and then gave us a tour of the factory, including the company’s small museum of historic Dennis vehicles. After seeing the process involved in turning a set of components into a complete underframe we were free to inspect completed vehicles on site. As well as ADL’s development vehicles, past & present, this included new stock awaiting delivery to several London operators.