http://www.fadingimages.uk/photoHe.asp

112/114 Hills Road, The Ortona Motor Company (44), Cambridge

History of 112 Hills Road

1861

James Long, 60, painter and publican, b Essex

Mary, 55, b Essex

Ellen, 19, bar maid, daughter, b Cambridge

George, 12, grandson, railway clerk, b Cambridge

Eliza, 10, b Cambridge

North Flegg, lodger, 29, carpenter, b Norfolk

1871

William Ransom, 27, publican, b Cambs

Eliza Ann, 29, b Essex

William E, 2, b Essex

Robert H, 8, b Cambridge

Harry Brayley, lodger, 47, b Essex, engineer

John Vann, lodger, 50, b Northants, labourer

Catherine Vann, wife, 28, b Lancs

John Vann, son, 14, b Warwicks, labourer

William Vann, son, 1m, b Cambridge

J Carswell, boarder, 29, clerk

Martha Breed, 48, Hunts, servant

1881

(44)

Telegraph Stores & Office

1901

Charles F Furbank, 77, schoolmaster, b Cambridge

Mary, 76, b Cambs

Eleanor, 31

William Barton, 28, boarder, grocer’s clerk, b Norfolk

Jessie Barton, 19, boarder, teacher, b Bourn

1911

( 114 Hills Road)

Eleanor Stanley Furbank, 45, headmistress private school, born London

Lizzie Bird, boarder, 52, private means, b Norfolk

Lucy Free, servant, 18, b Cambs

1913

The Ortona Motor Company Ltd

John Berry Walford, manager

For more information about the Ortona Motor Company visit

http://easterncountiesomnibusco.com/ortonahistory.pdf

http://cambridgehistorian.blogspot.com/2013/01/on-buses-in-cambridge-early-years.html

Also see Trams

1916

---

1919

Cambridge Independent Press 2.5.1919: WOMEN’S WAR WORK. Cambridge Motor ’Bus Conductors. Only two women row remain of the fourteen employed as conductors by the Ortona Motor Omnibus at the period of the war when men were scarcest. Towards the end of last year tho men who had left to join the Army gradually returned and the women who had kept the places open punched their last ticket and made their bow. The work was not easy, and the hours were long, yet Cambridge will member the courtesy of these “conductorettes,” as they were popularly called, and agree with Mr. J. B. Walford, the manager of the company, when he remarked, “Everything has gone very smoothly; they have worked well.”

At first women were doubtful as their ability to undertake duties partnering the ’bus drivers, and showed diffidence in offering themselves for this form of war work. One of them, recollecting her experiences, said: “I heard that women conductors were wanted when I was making some inquiries at the Labour Exchange, and I was told to go and see the manager of the Ortona Company. I walked up Hills-road, but when I came to the office I couldn’t pluck up courage to in and I went back home.” But this applicant conquered her faint-heartedness the next day, signed on and became of the most efficient of the company’s servants.

Men were becoming so few at one time that the idea of engaging women drivers for vehicles was seriously considered, and undoubtedly women would have been at the wheel of more than one ‘bus had the signing of the Armistice been a  little longer delayed. The women were employed on the Borough services only, as on the country routes the handling of heavy parcels is involved. Each omnibus had two women who worked the 14-hour day in two shifts; the first arriving on duty at 8 a.m. with a relief due at 3 pm. The men drivers and their fair assistants came to know and appreciate each other; to borrow the phrase of one driver consulted on the point, they ‘have got along famously.’  Nearly all these women, who all live in Cambridge, are the wives of soldiers who have served abroad, and more than one husband has fallen while his wife was carrying on in the public service at home.  Cambridge will remember with gratitude, in thinking of its women war workers, the “bus-conductorettes.”

OUR PHOTO. Our photo is of two of the women conductors employed by the Ortona Motor ‘Bus Company, Mrs. K. Maskell of 112 Argyle-Street, and Mrs. M. Palmer of 7a York-terrace. The husbands of both have been serving in France while they have been helping to carry on at home.

---

---

1953 07 09
Building operations are in progress to modernise the garages at the Hills Road depot of the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company and give appreciable increase in accommodation. A modern canteen and new offices and cycle racks are to be constructed. With commendable optimism, the Company are demolishing a bomb shelter which was installed during the war. Luckily it was never put to the test, but workmen are finding it a difficult assignment – an indication of the strength and protection it would have afforded. At present only one third of the garage space can be used. Buses which are now without a home are being parked in railway sidings nearby.
Credit: Mike Petty, Cambridge Cherryhinton Road Area Scrapbook 1897–1990.

---

1960 08 18
Harry Bevan joined the Ortona Motor Company in 1912 and for seven years drove the bus to Sawston, for which he was allowed 50 minutes each way. Carrying parcels as well as a steady stream of passengers he made five journeys a day and using the maximum speed of 12 mph always had time for a good smoke break at the end. The first double-decker ran from Station Road Corner to the Rock Hotel on Cherryhinton Road and back via Blinco Grove. It was not allowed to go through the town because it was a menace to shop signs. 60 08 18a & b
Credit: Mike Petty, Cambridge Cherryhinton Road Area Scrapbook 1897–1990.

---

1984 11 20
Cambridge’s Hills Road bus depot is to be moved to the outskirts of the city in a multi-million pound swap deal between Cambus and the Stetchworth-based Unex property group. Cambus will exchange its one-acre site for a much larger section of the former D & H Contractor’s site in Cowley Road. In return Unex will get control of the bus depot virtually next door to the former Heffer’s printing works site which they successfully redeveloped as Botanic House, headquarters of Cambridge Electronic Industries, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and Betjeman House which was subsequently sold for more than £4 million. 84 11 20 p1
Credit: Mike Petty, Cambridge Cherryhinton Road Area Scrapbook 1897–1990.

---

1986 12 08
Controversial plans to build a high-tech office block on the site of the old Eastern Counties Bus Station in Hills Road have been given Government approval, despite fierce council opposition. The Stetchworth-based property development company Unex Group can construct a three-storey office block. But alternative proposals for a four-storey block and sheltered housing, scorned by the council as ‘a geriatric ghetto’, have been dismissed. 86 12 08a
Credit: Mike Petty, Cambridge Cherryhinton Road Area Scrapbook 1897–1990.

---

1988 09 14
Mills & Reeve Francis solicitors take over old Cambus depot site, Hills Road 88 09 14 c
Credit: Mike Petty, Cambridge Cherryhinton Road Area Scrapbook 1897–1990.