A SENTINEL bus has arrived in Barry to join a Welsh Heritage bus collection.

The Cardiff Transport Preservation Group based at the bus depot, in Broad Street, secured the unusual 65-year-old Sentinel bus with a Caerphilly-made body for its collection of historic vintage buses.

An older former 1944 Pontypridd partially restored Second World War utility Bristol K6A double decker was brought to Barry from Norfolk, late last year.

The partially restored Caerphilly single-deck built bus, from Yorkshire, is an example of a quite unusual manufacturer of motor vehicles, even in its heyday of the 1950s.

Even fewer survive today.

The 1950s Sentinel bus, was spotted for sale by one of the preservation group's members, Clive Williams who realised it had a Caerphilly connection.

Sentinel of Shrewsbury provided the diesel engine and running gear but important to the Cardiff-based group, is that the bus with registration ODE 182, has bodywork designed and supplied by Welsh Metal Industries, a business based in Caerphilly.

It was new in 1952 to Edwards Bus Services of Cymmych in Pembrokeshire and became part of Mid Way Motors before it was sold on to another operator in England.

The 44-seat bus has been partly restored by John Hinchliffe of Yorkshire but it will need additional restoration to complete it.

Heritage bus group chairman, Mike Taylor said: “The Sentinel with a local Caerphilly made body was a find that we just had to secure. It is under restoration with much of the interior and frames prepared ready for panels to be added, then it will need connecting up of all its electrical components and restoring the engine.

"Sentinel may to some seem an unusual make of bus.

"The company existed between 1902 and 1957 and they were more famous for building railway steam locomotives, and steam powered road waggons.

"By 1950 the company moved into the motor age with the manufacture of lorries along with a number of buses and a few touring coaches.

"In 1957 it was bought by Rolls Royce for diesel engine manufacture which later became Vickers Rolls Royce.”

The bus can be viewed at the group's spring special 25th Anniversary Running Day at The Bus Depot, in Barry, on Sunday May, 7.