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September 2012

Her Majesty The Queen Visit Bailey

Royal Visit to Bailey of Bristol to mark the 65th Anniversary of the construction of the first Bailey Caravan

On Thursday 22nd November Her Majesty The Queen accompanied by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh visited Bailey of Bristol to mark the 65th Anniversary of the construction of the first Bailey Caravan.

Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh received a guided tour of the Company's state-of-the-art South Liberty Lane production plant, meeting a number of the Bailey production team members in the process, and were also able to spend time looking round an award-winning Unicorn Barcelona touring caravan and an Approach SE 760 motorhome.

Commenting on the visit Bailey Managing Director, Nick Howard said - "On behalf of everybody at Bailey of Bristol I would like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to Her Majesty on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee" "Naturally we are delighted that both The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh have been able to visit us today. It is clearly a huge honour for everybody associated with the company and the perfect way to begin our own sixty-fifth anniversary celebrations" he added.

Founded in 1948 Bailey Caravans is the longest established UK independent manufacturer with sixty five years experience in caravan design and production. During this period it has grown to become not only the UK's number one caravan brand, accounting for approximately one in three new caravan sales, but also now one of the largest in Europe. More recently the company has brought this same level of expertise to new product sectors including motorhomes and leisure homes, which are caravans designed specifically for siting on seasonal pitches, as well as expanding to new export markets such as Australia and New Zealand. The first Bailey caravan was built by Martin Bailey in his garage in South Bristol in 1947 and was subsequently sold at Ashton Gate market for the sum of £200.

A year later F G Bailey Ltd was formed and went into production. The company developed rapidly throughout the 1950's eventually outgrowing its original site and moving to its present address at South Liberty Lane in 1960. In 1977 the company was purchased by Patrick and Stephen Howard and Bailey Caravans Ltd as it now known has remained in Howard family ownership ever since. Three years ago the company introduced the Alu-Tech body shell construction system which is seen by most observers as the most significant development in leisure vehicle production technology for three decades. Providing genuine design innovation, this fully patented technology, means that Bailey leisure vehicles are now some of the best engineered and the most technically advanced products on the market and ones which keep owners comfortable safe and secure no matter how tough the conditions.

Today Bailey employs over 300 local people on a 14.5-acre South Bristol site and currently manufactures 7,000+ leisure vehicles per year to generate an annual turnover in excess of £ 90 million.

In summary Bailey Managing Director, Nick Howard, concluded - "We are extremely proud of what we have achieved as a company over the past sixty-five years and to be part of an industry which remains one of the great British manufacturing success stories"