This is definitely a Sid Knowles Bedford then, Lewdown, mid 80’s. The Lewdown Café was behind where the photographer is standing, within a garage building.
The café is hidden behind the W Stevenson Volvo, heading west.
Aah - Lewdown Cafe, in the Shell Petrol station; only a tiny place but the best bacon butties and tea on the A30! That was just one haunt on a regular run trunking beer to the Hall’s Oxford and West (Ind Coope) brewery depot at Treliske. In the days before sleeper cabs, we used to stay at Tom’s Transportel at Scorrier - who can remember that? - or at the farm by the big layby just south of Indian Queens. Then, when we got sleepers and camped outside the depot, we would walk down to the Queen Victoria Inn at Threemilestone. Spent many an evening there, winter and summer - not been back for well over thirty years, is it still the same or is it now another plastic pub, I wonder.
On the subject of Cornish hauliers - quite a few years ago, F B Atkins at Findern set up a number of owner-drivers all across the country. One I knew quite well at the time was a chap from Penzance, although I’ll be damned if I can remember his name now (it’s an age thing, you know!) He had a Fiat (pre-Iveco) artic in the brown Atkins livery, but his name on it. I was told that when he packed up he went on the trawlers at Newlyn, but I’ve never seen or heard of him again. Can anyone remember him?
Steve
From my memory there was a café on the road between Exeter and Taunton no motorway back then think the M5 started from Taunton but stopped short of Bristol and back on the old roads. Anyway cant remember where exactly it was but there was a pub a couple of hundred yards up the road from the café so was a favourite overnight stop place for the Cornish trucks, may have been near to Wellington, there was a very long layby there caused buy a road straightening opposite the pub and café, When busy there would be 10 or 15 motors spend the night there, does any one else remember that location, Buzzer.
Buzzer:
From my memory there was a café on the road between Exeter and Taunton no motorway back then think the M5 started from Taunton but stopped short of Bristol and back on the old roads. Anyway cant remember where exactly it was but there was a pub a couple of hundred yards up the road from the café so was a favourite overnight stop place for the Cornish trucks, may have been near to Wellington, there was a very long layby there caused buy a road straightening opposite the pub and café, When busy there would be 10 or 15 motors spend the night there, does any one else remember that location, Buzzer.
That would be the Maidendown Stage at Uffculme near Burlescombe. After standing derelict for many years, it is now home to the John Luffman Group. There was another very popular cafe a short distance to the south - I think it was called Jack’s - which is now a caravan sales site. This cafe survived for quite a while after the motorway opened.
If you Google Maidendown Stage, there is an article from the Exeter Express and Echo giving the history of the place - wonderfully informative, this internet!
Steve
Thanks for that Steve its a long time ago since I travelled that route so the old memory aint so sharp nowadays, still remember on the up journey calling in for tea and toast and as you approached it looked like a hay rick was alight but no, just R & O ERF’s warming up there Gardener engines while the drivers had breakfast, them was the days of proper cafe’s with good evening meals not fry ups all the time, Buzzer.
HI ALL, the café south of the maidendown was morgans, which I thought was still going. this pic of my lorry was taken at morgans by “bubbs”.the long layby was about a mile north of the maidendown, just past martin haymans transport, there were two pubs oppsite the layby, now only one I think.
Yes, “Morgan’s Transport Café” as the name appears on the sign outside, is still going. The pub up the road is the Poachers Pocket. This area is known as Red Ball, on the A38, near Burlescombe. The area is busy with local tipper lorries.
If anyone knows Nigel Bunt or can drag him in to today’s world he has thousands of lorry photos from his driving days , I last saw him at kelsal show 2 yrs ago but he still hadn’t discovered the Internet .
Punchy Dan:
If anyone knows Nigel Bunt or can drag him in to today’s world he has thousands of lorry photos from his driving days , I last saw him at kelsal show 2 yrs ago but he still hadn’t discovered the Internet .
just been reading through Cornish companies, good reading all story s and companies. when I came down a long time ago, I used to bring calfs to helston wash out then move furniture from Plymouth back to Shropshire. ie somebody leaving forces to work on farms. when on tippers used to to bibby Falmouth and clay back and b o c m roache. Thursdays would bring lambs to probus , then Friday back to Exeter market and load for stuarts for Gloucester. thanks Charlie
hey robert priceless 
Here’s one from the 60s, MJ Wevell’s Guy working on the Dobwalls by-pass:
A Redruth-based truck back at the end of the 90s, Carn Distribution (AKA Silverstream) loading fish for TFE Vannes in Newlyn . Never thought that one day I’d work for the same French firm on the other side of the great divide!
And just to round it off, a couple of my dad’s tippers, including the last Albion in daily use in the UK, according to the Albion owner’s club:
Craig
Had many a trip in those two with you and your dad Craig.
Gareth
Gat46:
Had many a trip in those two with you and your dad Craig.
Gareth
Ah yes, I remember Gareth, but now you’re riding in something a bit bigger from what I hear.
Worth putting a photo of it on here I reckon 
Modern day big fleet out of Cornwall, we do some reciprocal work with this company nowadays but they were not there in the early seventies when I plied those roads up from the west country in a GUY big J WITH 180 Gardener engine, Buzzer.
Buzzer:
Modern day big fleet out of Cornwall, we do some reciprocal work with this company nowadays but they were not there in the early seventies when I plied those roads up from the west country in a GUY big J WITH 180 Gardener engine, Buzzer.
Conway was there in the 70s but going by the photos Mark Bailey showed me (when I worked for them 25 years ago) he only had one truck, a Leyland Reiver if my memory serves me right. In the eighties the firm had grown as the Bailey boys grew up, with a handful of Roadtrains driven by the sons or Conway himself. Now I think they’re the biggest haulier in Cornwall, taking into account both CBT and R&R Transport, another firm with an exceptionally long history.
That GUY that Craig111 posted. Are my eyes deceiving me or is drive axle 2 different to drive axle 3?
gazzer:
That GUY that Craig111 posted. Are my eyes deceiving me or is drive axle 2 different to drive axle 3?
Maybe a 6x2 a lightweight warrior 6?
David Miller:
I can’t believe that this one hasn’t come up yet.Anyone remember Layby Transport from Launston. I can’t be the only silly old b… that remembers them and their 2 waggons.
I was on Thompsons at that time spending a lot of time in Lifton handballing pudding.
David
Hi mate,
i remember these, i lived down in tintagel and passed their yard (layby) on the way to launceston. I can remember that they had a crusader but not the other one.
do you remember the firm from camelford that had two or three scammel crusaders painted in a red and cream livery? Think they did their own work from a factory there.
steve.
