One of the many thousands of such 'official' guides and handbooks issued by UK local authorities and, like many others, published on their behalf by the Cheltenham based concern of Ed. J. Burrow. They conatin information as to services, amenities and local commercial activities and this, for Clitheroe in the Ribble Valley in Lancashire, is typical. The Borough was one of the councils reformed under the 1835 legislation and the Town Council remained the local authority until 1974 when it became part of the new Ribble Valley Borough Council; a successor parish council survives.
The front cover shows a picturesque view up towards the ruined Castle that still dominates this town. The guide is, as often the case, undated but the text lets slip that the town only recently introduced a supply of electricity in 1927 and so a date of c.1928 seems likely. The guide makes great play on the extent of motor bus services in the vicinity and this advert is for the independent "Bounty Motor Services of neighbouring Slaidburn, then over the old county boundary and just inside the West Riding of Yorkshire. Owned by Colin Walker, this appears to be a realtive of the village's innkeeper, Rober Walker, who ran the Hark to Bounty Inn and both concerns sharing the same telephone number of Slaidburn 14!
The outfit would likely have been typical of the 1920s small independent bus operator, often running a small number of buses and coaches, and of a breed that had grown massively in post-WW1 years thanks to the development of motor vehicles that had been assisted by the war effort along with a glut of ex-military vehicles along with staff trained to maintain them. I'm not sure what happened to Bounty Motor Services but in the late 1920s and early 1930s, often backed by railway capital, major regional bus concerns came into prominance by buying up local concerns, such as Ribble Motor Services who would become the major player in this part of Lancashire and West Yorkshire. At the time they ran buses between Slaidburn and neighbouring localities such as Newton, Dunspor Bridge, Whitewell, Bashall Eaves, Wadidngton, Moor Cock, Waddington Fells, Thornley and Longridge. They would have offered unprecidented mobility to such a rural area.
