It all started out as early as the 1950’s where the Watkinson name was famed by the late John Sayer Watkinson by his racehorse training and breeding abilities, near Middleham, North Yorkshire, and the coachbuilding firm was later established in 1961, which has amplified ever since into specialist vehicle bodies, trailers from horse to commercial and show jumps and with the family third generation’s involvement.
Long gone are the days of the Bedford TK and TL – the most popular chassis used for a hunter styled horsebox and the livestock Container which we were also famed for. JSW was a label of quality to be had in the farming industry as we also manufactured livestock containers to carry stocks of cattle, sheep, pigs, showing stock as well as dead-stock vehicles.
All farmers had their own cattle box for local journey to the auction mart or slaughterhouse, prior to the popularity of 4×4’s and livestock trailers, in which we hit the trends by later become agents for Bateson livestock trailers. You can still see some of our ‘older’ livestock containers on the road today!
With our experience of custom coach-building over the years we have built many a commercial body and some very unusual vehicle bodies too!!
In the ’60’s and 70’s a horsebox was made simply to carry ‘it’s’ stock with no living or a very little accommodation. How the last few decades have changed, but the trends always come back around with more having their boxes to carry just their stock again !
The 80’s saw the designs move on a little further with newer products becoming available to the manufacturing market, and cabs available with more driving comforts. A horsebox was designed to carry horses with a simple ‘lads’ area to the front. No luxury living on board yet!
The early ’90’s kicked off more and more demand on horse wagons for the private individual as an affordable form of transport and with the request for larger living accommodation for the whole family. The horsebox was seen as the highly sociable, but portable ‘living room’ whilst away at shows for inviting friends back for ‘crisps and nibbles’ and a good sociable ‘tipple’ too!
Joining in 1991, was Alan’s daughter Emma making it now a third generation family business. Bringing with her fresh ideas and adding new products to the company.
With the Millennium approaching JSW entered a new chapter with the introductions of plastic show jumps. We were trailblazers at the introduction of plastic show jumps to the North of England and beyond.
As we started to carry stock, and whilst customers had their horseboxes or trailers in for repair or build, the idea was brilliant to ‘’fill the horse area of shiny and new, maintenance-free show jumps. That interest increased rapidly with the first large jump set was for the Bedale & West of Yore Pony Club, which is still in use today, 25 years on!
The on-line shop soon followed and so did many more quality plastic equestrian items as we were headhunted by top brands wanting us to re-sell their products. Dare we say, ‘The rest is history’!
Then during the latter part of our Millennium, had seen a drop in the average person’s spend on a new horsebox replacing it with the best horse trailer suitable to their budget. The professional horse-person’s still demand a proper built horse-wagon, such as Racehorse trainers, horse-movers and the pro-horse-person.
With JSW growing and evolving over the last 50+years, it proves that the strength of this company is with the name, their team, experience, technical, reliability, down-to earth friendliness and knowledge of specialist transport – no other horsebox manufacturer could give such a detailed background to their history.
