Henry Burton of Stafford tourer...

[Old Ned]

Called in at Henry Burton Cycles, and i must say what a smashing shop it is, nice friendly staff. A proper family run bike shop.
I confirmed with John Burton, Henry's son, that Goldie's bike, was a budget model built in the late 70's, early 80's by the same firm that built that model of Falcon, that is shown in the above post. I have forget the name of that firm, but the frames were built in Japan.
I had a nice chat with John Burton, and got quite a lot of history and information, about the shop, but that will have to wait for another post.

Interesting info., thanks. Japan eh, not Taiwan. Possibly Taiwan hadn't got into this sort of thing then.

Now we need to know who built their 'good' frames! I wonder if Paul Washington was involved. He was from the area and (I think) built for several shops etc. around and about.

 

[mavesyn]

Old Ned, a lot more information to come.
But first i have got to go back next week, to pick up, something rather special..............

I try to avoid nice bike shop's, because i can't avoid spending money. .
Mike.

 

[Spokesmann]

Never Knew Hb sold or made/badged bikes!

My Carlton Flyer was refurbished at some point by them....

 

[claws]

Just discovered this forum, so a little late in the day for reply, but was a regular in Henry Burton's shop in the '60s. He made a frame for me. It cost £17 10shillings. The lugs (Nervex pro) were hand-filed flush to the tubes by Charlie Bettley. A lovely job, and I was a very proud 17yr old, as you might imagine! I still have the frame, but it is not in good nick, I'm afraid, somewhat abandoned in favour of a new Focus. I wonder whether it be worth renovating? We we're able to go into the back to see the work-in-progress. Nearly all Stafford Road Club members rode one

 

[Old Ned]

Just discovered this forum, so a little late in the day for reply, but was a regular in Henry Burton's shop in the '60s. He made a frame for me. It cost £17 10shillings. The lugs (Nervex pro) were hand-filed flush to the tubes by Charlie Bettley. A lovely job, and I was a very proud 17yr old, as you might imagine! I still have the frame, but it is not in good nick, I'm afraid, somewhat abandoned in favour of a new Focus. I wonder whether it be worth renovating? We we're able to go into the back to see the work-in-progress. Nearly all Stafford Road Club members rode one

It's never to late for an interesting reply! Welcome to the forum.

You've confirmed that the frames were build on site at the shop, at least in the 60's. Quite often shops bought out from 'jobbing' builders and put their own transfers on but it now seems that HB didn't for their better frames at least.

If you're going to become a 'proper' member of Retrobike you'll have to get yours renovated! Then you'll need all the period fittings. Hours of endless fun sourcing it all!!

I used to race against Stafford RC riders in the 60's, especially at Newcastle Track League when Les West and Brian Rourke used to give everyone a hard time! Great days.

 

[mavesyn]

Welcome to the forum, claws...
As claws said, Henry did build the frames, in the back of the shop.
Henry built the frames from 1950 till 1975, a lot of the time with Charlie Bettley.
When Henry stopped in 75, frame making duties were taken over by Charlie, to start with in the shop, and later at home, this went on till 1985, by which time it became to difficult to compete with the cheap bikes coming in from aboard. John said, they never really made much money out of frame making, it was just Henry's passion, every frame was different, he was always trying to build the perfect frame.
As a footnote, Charlie Bettley is now 89 years old, and still does many miles on his bike.

Ps, i love to see your bike, claws, to compare with my newly refurbished 1969 Henry Burton Frame. Some pics below, sorry about the crappy phone pics........

 

[Goldie]

More Henry Burton action

After my previous Henry Burton went to a very chuffed lad from Stretford, I was idly mucking about on ebay when I found myself unable to resist bidding on this:

Despite the town bike set up and Lyotard nylon pedals, it feels really nice and light - it's very easy to crank it up to ridiculous speeds. As with the last one, it is very nicely finished with Huret and Weinmann kit. I'm thinking drops and new pedals - I picked up a longer SR stem and some Mavic alloy bars last night.

 

[John Mackay]

Henry Burton Racing Bikes

I sold my 1953 Racing Bike just last month and can provide chapter and verse on Henry's finest ever bikes. These were the 4 frames made up for the 1950s Midland Clarion BBAR Winning Team (I was the 4th man so less well known than Geoff Morris, Jim Ogden and Colin Clarke - I did get the occasional medal however and held the odd club records for City Cycling Club, RAF Stoke Heath, Hereford and District Wheelers etc. The frames were actually made by Fred Williams who worked for Henry from time to time, and then lovingly finished by hand by Henry personally. We watched. Henry traded mine for my Gameson. The finish was Blue, the lugs were hand filed. My 21 1/2" bike had track ends and a shorter wheel base. Colin's was about 25", Geoff and Jim's about 23". They had conventional ends. I fitted a 10 speed Gear to ride the Isle of Man TT, otherwise we all rode Fixed, Geoff usually between 77 and 84", I rode 82.8 to 86". 531 Double Butted of course. My bike is now in London, owned by an ex Stafford lad and maybe a 'fixie' (!) again.

 

[mavesyn]

Hi John
I saw your ad on ebay, and was tempted to bid myself, but i thought i best save my money to get my Burton frame built up.
As my family are Wolverhampton folk, i was always told that Fred Williams shop was the best bike shop in the town. Was Fred Williams the same as Henry Burton, in that they started out at Ernie Clements?.

 

[John Mackay]

Henry Burton's Best Bikes...

Pity you didn't buy my bike, it is the only one left of that quality and attracted a lot of comment when I went out locally. I had a pile-up in 1996 and only rode that bike once more, kept to the mountain bike and golf.... Fred Williams converted the bits and pieces after John Burton did a respray in the early 90s. We 4 lads were in the shop whilst Joyce was giving birth to John, we used to arrive there after detours for training - big mileages of course, in my case. I went up there one Friday night via Kidde, BNorth, Wellington, Newport - about 85 miles, after tea. It went to Lands End every March from Mkt Drayton as early season training. At 14 I rode my 1st Ernie Clements Iron to Bute in Scotland (It was IRON!320 miles each way, fixed, via Kirkstone Pass, not walked either.), slept in ditches etc. did the trip 3 times and then bought my Gameson. Percy Stallard lived a few yards from me in Penn, I remember John Stallard born and then dying so young. 'Mavesyn' so you should know Buttermilk Hill? Won the odd hillclimb up that! I'm 78 now of course and still produce Videos - like Tough Guy (since 198My son did Ironman in 10h 29m, London in 2h52m. Icouldn't quite beat 3h30m when I hit 60 and retired.