John Davis was a coal merchant in Market Lavington at the time when coal was king. If you wanted to keep warm or cook things then the chances are you used coal. Huge quantities were moved around the country, mostly by rail. Some merchants had their own dedicated wagons and although no actual wagons survive, a model company produced a kit of a Davis of Lavington wagon. We have seen this photo before on this blog which shows a made up wagon, ready to run on an OO gauge model railway.
OO gauge Davis and Co of Market Lavington coal wagon
We also have a nearly identical wagon in unmade kit form.
A very similar wagon in kit form
It looks as though Davis had at least seven wagons for this is number 7 whereas the made up kit is number 5!
The kit looks as fiddly as these things often are, but also has some information with it.
The kit contains some historical background information
Our decision is to leave this one in kit form as we have the made up model. Our luck is that a company decided to make a model with a Market Lavington connection.
Tags: 20th century, coal merchant, model, railway, toy, wagon
Market Lavington Museum 
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