In 1995 Peter Watson started Cox’s Yard, named after the woodshed of timber dealers James Cox & Sons, who had traded in Stratford on Avon from 1839 to 1953, and in whose run-down premises Peter began trading in architectural salvage, relocating in 1997 to an industrial estate in the Cotswold market town of Moreton-in-Marsh, not far from his home in Great Wolford. The inherited name 'Cox’s Yard' stayed with the business until it was closed in 2019.
 
Peter’s earlier careers in sanitaryware and joinery, at one point combining the two to manufacture toilet seats, influenced Cox’s Yard which stocked reclaimed doors and period bathrooms, as well as restoring old doors and making new ones from reclaimed wood. Demand from his Cotswold clients resulted in the business making period oak front doors and ledge and brace cottage doors, from the ubiquitous reclaimed French railway wagon oak.
 
He was an enthusiastic supporter of the trade and of Salvo, and enjoyed attending the Salvo Fairs, particularly at Knebworth. His long-time colleague and Cox’s Yard manager, Dick Goodman, said that he would arrive with items to sell but also looking to purchase interesting salvage, not only from other dealers - at Salvo Fair in 2006 he bought the Knebworth estate’s old K6 phone box from Martha Cobbold (Lady Cobbold since 2019), and Watson had sold the K6 to a punter before the fair had finished. His interest in the environmental benefits of reclamation and reuse was such that when Salvo ran a campaign about the number of perfectly good reusable doors being trashed in Britain, he readily allowed the photographing of a large number of doors for a Salvo Reclaimed Door poster in 2003 which highlighted the annual UK loss of two million reusable doors with few being saved. Watson attended most of the Salvo convivial evenings, to which he invariably contributed, both as raconteur and with mystery objects from his immense stock of antique, reclaimed and salvaged curiosities.
 
Peter was a prolific writer of letters, before the days of woke, when he would wittily lambast bombast in the pages of SalvoNEWS. Ironically, although we think he was unaware of his literary connection to England’s greatest bard, the site of an earlier ‘Cox’s Yard’ was a woodyard in Shakespeare’s time, and then became home in 1875 to the forerunner of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre helped by James Cox junior, the mayor of Stratford who had written a blistering polemic against London worthies in 1865 - and one further coincidence, his book was published at ‘La Belle Sauvage Yard, Ludgate’ - clearly named for the echo of a long-forgotten ancient London salvage yard!
 
We include examples of the bard of Moreton’s literary prowess in the letter pages of early SalvoNEWS (see attached) - in which can be found, for example, ‘The king of self-publicity has been at it again … one obvious error … Captain Crapper’s age is given as 34 … it should be 134’, and another, ‘I heard that an elder statesman is coming … here is a photo of Trooper Wootton having a “cup o teay in a beysin” … the story goes that his eleven brothers and sisters shared one pair of clogs and always had teay in a beysin.’ He wrote that at Salvo Fair 2006 his most amusing sale was a teak worktop which he bought from Damian Cronin on the Friday trade day and sold to a lady for significantly more on the Saturday, ‘… with Damian looking on … he had his arm around me at the time! And the best thing – I hadn’t paid him!’
 
Dick Goodman said that during his later years at Cox’s Yard, Watson reclaimed some Great Western Railway bench ends. He promptly formed GWR Benches Ltd, found a foundry to cast the ends, and started making benches using reclaimed timber joists painted in the correct GWR brown. These were sold to GWR which was refurbing many of its stations, particularly Bristol Temple Meads. At the same time, using the website, many more of these benches were sold to people with memories of GWR from their youth, and to Vale of Rheidol Railway in Aberystwyth and similar places. By this time Pete was being assisted by his son Jon Watson.
 
Peter Watson was born on 5th February 1946 and brought up in Solihull. His mother Mary was the first of her Welsh roots to dare cross the Border and marry an Englishman, and his father Arthur was an eminent surgeon, firstly in Leicestershire and then in the Birmingham area.
 
John Davies, a childhood friend, recalled, ‘both of us were such outstanding academic achievers at school that our respective parents resorted to sending us to Bantocks, a crammer in Edgbaston, when we were sixteen’. Earlier, at Solihull School, Peter had become known as Buff, short for Buffalo, and he was in the CCF, played Rugby, and was head of house, after which he did business studies at Aston College of Commerce where he also wrote the college newspaper. Exploring the pubs of Knowle, Watson discovered The Boot at nearby Lapworth, which proved a regular weekend meeting place for the filling and draining of a white jug, able to hold ten pints of foaming Flowers IPA, from which his next two nicknames emerged. Firstly Trundle, and secondly Mich, for Michelin Man.
 
John Davies continued, ‘Peter told me about an off-road excursion when he wrapped his MG TC round a lampost, the outcome of which was a very bent motor car, and a bill from Birmingham City Council for a new lampost. His most spectacular crash took place one Friday night. I was getting out of my car and heard two cars approaching, engines at high revs, headlamps lighting up the trees, then the howling of tyres and a sequence of thuds, bangs and shattering glass. We searched by torchlight and found a completely wrecked car which I recognised was Pete’s mother’s MG 1300. We extricated a shaken, bruised Watson, swearing at the safety belt in which he was entangled. The car hit an oak tree about four feet up, roof first, was a total write off and Peter was hugely lucky to escape serious injury. A few years later he survived writing off a Lotus 7. And again, in the Bullring, Birmingham, when the bumper of his MiniMoke got caught in the wheel-arch of a Birmingham Corporation bus, much to the irritation of the bus driver and the interruption to his timetable.’
 
After a short period in Queensway, London, where he discovered Fray Bentos steak and kidney pies Trundle, John Davies, Dick Goodman and others moved again in 1969 to The Kennels, a rented 17th century five bedroomed house near Meriden on the estate of the Earl of Aylesford’s Packington Hall (Built in 1772, the house a Palladian mansion by Joseph Bonomi, the park by Capability Brown), where he lived for five years.
 
John Davies again: ‘The Kennels years were a riot. Pies featured a good deal, a great convenience food for twenty something year old bachelors. The house was a stone’s throw from The Malt Shovel pub where cheap schooners of sherry were served, and about three miles further was The White Lion at Hampton-in-Arden. The Boot still featured regularly … so too did Indian restaurants in Knowle and Birmingham, open till late and handy for soaking up an evening’s consumption of weak beer. Trundle now worked for a Bilston lavatory valve-makers and started a career in sanitaryware, travelling widely and regularly in the Middle East, on one occasion selling squatting pans to Asian merchants in Mecca.’
 
Peter met Diana, who visited The Kennels in 1975, and started working as Pete’s office secretary for his growing export business. Romance blossomed and they moved to Brook Cottage, Great Wolford, where they remained for the next 40 years, until their recent move to Moreton on Marsh. Di and Pete’s contributions to Great Wolford life included bonfire nights, church bells fundraising, the Village Fund, French evenings, Burns nights, St George’s day dinners, and Pete was on the Parochial Church Council, Village Hall Committee, a Parish Councillor, a prime mover in the Fox and Hounds pub campaign, as well as a Pop-up pub with Geoff Shuttleworth.
 
Peter acquired a red TVR Griff (Griffith M50 TMS), a famous and successful competition car, which became renowned with the TVR Hillclimb and Sprint community. Of Peter, Steve Cox, a significant figure in the TVR sprint world, said, ‘Peter was a generous guy. On one occasion our most insane driver, Jes Firth, had broken his own Griffith and Peter selflessly offered Jes his car in which he ‘completely blitzed’ the opposition, being faster than its owner, who sportingly congratulated Jes, and commented that he would have to sharpen up on his own driving skills. Another story that Steve came up with concerns a saga with a trailer. Driving to a meeting one weekend Pete noticed that his car and trailer was handling strangely. On getting out to check, he found that one of the four wheels on the trailer was missing. Knowing that he had a spare wheel, but no spare nuts, the resourceful Pete removed one nut from each of the three remaining wheels to attach the spare. Thus began the legend of Superhero Three Nuts Watson, a nickname that stuck and was used extensively in magazine articles for years to come.
 
The last time that I saw Trundle was at a very enjoyable, convivial evening held last year and attended by a sprinkling of merry dealers. He told me that, despite his alleged retirement, plans were afoot for new business ventures. This was confirmed the other day by his friend, Ronnie Wotton, who had bought a fresh dressed crab at Birmingham fish market which he had planned to take to Peter’s home to hatch a new business plan on the very morning after 21 April 2022 when Mr. Watson had sadly died.
 
The funeral on 19 May at Evesham, conducted by Wendy Veale, was well-attended by family, friends, the TVR fraternity (who brought a number of cars in solemn procession), and members of the architectural salvage trade from around England. The funeral was followed by a wake at The Bell Inn, Moreton in Marsh.
 
Thanks to John Davies, Dick Goodman, Wendy Veale and others who contributed (wittingly or unwittingly) to this obituary, and apologies to anyone missed. TK
 
TRIBUTES
* Adam Hills of Retrouvius wrote that he was the biggest and best salvage yard owner of the Cotswolds, and bought vast amounts from us including hundreds of tonnes of granite cladding from the World Trade Centre in Canary Wharf. He also raced a TVR Griffith sports car, so the funeral was part committal, part car show. Peter was a splendid chap and always had a smile, even when I warned him an artic was on the way. The salvage trade is missing you already, Trundle.
* Ruby Hazael said that he was a lovely lovely man. I was sorry to miss the funeral. Nice to have seen so many friendly faces.
* Tony Smith wrote: 'Very sad. He was a real gentleman. RIP'
* Pete Randle said Peter was a great chap to deal with, sadly missed.
* From Simon Kirby: Trundle had yet another sobriquet: Sir Buster McTwang (of McTwang). This stemmed from an occasion when he conducted a very large lorry into our yard. As he slowly reversed in we could all hear an excruciating sound of something being stretched. We (including Peter) looked around for the source but we could see nothing, so he carried on. Suddenly there was the most terrible twanging sound as wires appeared from nowhere and flew around our heads as if they were bullwhips. The very tall items on the back of his lorry had extended then snapped the telephone wires; those to all the businesses at Alscot Park. The telephone company took a week to get everyone re-connected and Trundle and I were most unpopular for some time. Trundle was such a jolly man, we had marvellous fun over the years, especially at the glorious Salvo Fairs and Convivial Dinners. He felt very strongly about reclamation and re-use. I miss him greatly. Simon Kirby
* From Thornton Kay: Peter was a kind, working, bon viveur who lived life to the max. He was loved by many in the trade and Salvo, of which he was a great supporter. Our condolences go to Di and Jon, his family and friends.
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We will add more tributes we receive