The two Manors - 7802 Bradley Manor and 7812 Erlestoke Manor - were from a class of thirty engines, designed by C.B.Collett and built at Swindon Works in 1938 and 1939. Just twenty of these were built before the onset of World War II and the remainder were built in 1950 under BR auspices. Our two engines were of the earlier batch and in good GWR fashion contained many parts from scrapped older classes, especially from 2-6-0 Moguls! (7802 is reputed to be a rebuild of 4321, and 7812 of 4325). The boilers though were an entirely new GWR type specially designed for these lightweight (68 ton), go-anywhere, engines.
'Erlestoke' was delivered directly to the Bristol/Bath area in January 1939 and worked both passenger and freight trains to such places as Salisbury, Weymouth, Weston Super Mare and Cardiff. In mid 1948, 'Erlestoke' was moved further westward to the Plymouth and Cornwall area and was often assisting with long distance expresses on the Devon banks. It was not until late in 1960 that it finally arrived in the Oswestry/Shrewsbury/Cambrian area where it would work again alongside 'Bradley' until they were both withdrawn together at Shrewsbury on 6th November 1965. Shrewsbury shed had become part of the LM (as 6D) in 1963 and these very Great Western engines were actually on the LM books at the time
Following purchase and removal from Barry by the EMF in 1974, and subsequent repairs and renovations, 'Erlestoke' was the first to enter service on the Severn Valley Railway in September 1979 and ran through to 1985.
I am most grateful to the http://www.erlestokemanorfund.co.uk/ for the above notes
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