1953 Bentley R Type Automatic Sports Saloon. B31UL
A smart and sound example, well cared-for, and complete with a printed record of expenditure on maintenance and repairs, covering the period 1989 to 2025. This amounts to just over £50,000, and includes some significant attention. The car is nicely finished in Shell grey and Tudor grey, with just a few blemishes, and has a delightful, original, mellowed, deep red leather interior. The car comes with an impressive set of original tools, large ones in the correct clips in the boot, and the small ones in the tray underneath the driver’s seat. We have carried out an engine refurbishment with new pistons, etc, along with much other attention, and the car is offered prepared, serviced and newly MoT tested.
Chassis No. B31UL.
Reg No. NYK 296.
Price £32,500.
Snippets: Secrets of Knockholt & Bury
There is little information to be found about the owners of B31Ul so instead here are a few fascinating details about the villages of Knockholt & Bury were the car resided.
B31UL was resident in Knockholt during the 1970s / 1990s where in 1841 the artist Henry John Boddington had painted “A Lane at Knockholt” and the village was home to the famous watercolourist William Frederick Wells 1732-1836 whose friend J. Turner was a frequent visitor. In 1876 the railway station arrived at Knockholt and in 1906 was the setting for E. S. Nesbitt’s The Railway Children, during WWII Major Alexander Malins Lafone was awarded the Victoria Cross and Major Norman Smithers the Military Cross.
From 1989 until now B31UL was based in Bury which is named after Adam de Bury who held the manor from 1193 to 1219 as “one knight’s fee of ancient tenure”. In the 14th century, Alice De Bury married Roger Pilkington, and the manor remained with the Pilkington’s until 1485 when the lands of Sir Thomas Pilkington were forfeited because of his allegiance to King Richard III. The new King, Henry, granted them to his step-father Thomas, Lord Stanley, the Stanley family have been Lords of the Manor ever since.
At the start of 18th century, John Kay, born at Walmersley, Bury, invented his famous “picking peg” in 1733, which made the shuttle in his hand loom move more quickly. It became known as the “Flying Shuttle” and revolutionised cotton weaving making Bury a centre for fabric production.