The Bashalls

A brief history of Betty Bashall, her toy factory, and the Bashall family

Betty Bashall
In the period leading up to World War II, Betty Bashall started a factory, manufacturing and selling wooden toys.

She was a talented designer and engineer and built up a successful business designing and manufacturing toys at her factory in Thames Ditton, near Kingston upon Thames. In her day, she was on par with names such as Chad Valley and Triang.

When WWII broke out, her talents were directed away from toys, and towards manufacturing parts for the mostly wooden Mosquito aircraft.

At the end of the war she sold the factory, and designed and built her own Motor Yacht. The boat, called Mellona (Goddess of the Bees) was a 65'.5"L x 14'6"W x 5'6"D and designed to sail anywhere in the world. It was built in the yard behind the factory. Once the boat was finished, the factory site was sold and Betty's ambition to sail through France came true when she sailed Mellona through the French inland waterways to the Mediterranean. At the time It's believed that Mellona was the largest vessel to have been sailed the whole route through the french
waterways.

Betty chose Majorca as her stopping point, and retired there. 'Retirement', in this case, means taking time out to design and build her own Casa, where she spent the rest of her days.

Brian Bashall

Brian is Betty’s son. He and his sister Helen were children when the toy factory was in its heyday and they were the test pilots of all the new designs.
Brian got hooked on Land Rovers in his early twenties and bought his first Land Rover 80” in 1952 after the father of his girlfriend of the day objected to her going pillion on his Vincent Black Shadow Motorcycle. This was the start of a lifelong obsession with Land Rovers and he has never been without at least a couple ever since.

The obsession eventually turned into a business in 1968 when together with Pip, his wife, he started Dunsfold Land Rovers Ltd in an ex-searchlight battery in the picturesque village of Dunsfold, Surrey. The business grew and with it the collection of Land Rovers.

Brian actively collected all models including rare prototypes and pre production models. This has now become the Dunsfold Collection of Land Rovers. This is a collection of around 70 vehicles (the numbers vary on an almost weekly basis as new discoveries are made).

Brian was given a lifetimes achievement award by The Transport Trust for putting the collection together. Now in his late 70’s Brian is taking things a little easier but still has a handful of Land Rovers, Bentleys, and Morris Minors in daily use.

Philip Bashall
Philip, Brians younger of two sons is now the driving force of both Dunsfold Land Rovers and the Dunsfold Collection of Land Rovers, and together with a handful of friends of the collection has increased and maintained the numbers now in the collection. Philip is one of the leading authorities of all things Land Rover, sharing his knowlege with enthusiasts worldwide. He also has a stunning collection of manuals and brochures, which are often used for research by TV and film
production companies.

Chris Bashall
Chris, Brians older son, together with Pip (his mum) founded Surrey Off-Road Specialists Ltd. Located next door to Dunsfold Land Rovers, the company specialises in 4x4 vehicle preparation and design for a wide variety of users including various vehicle manufacturers and the Ministry of Defence etc.

It was whilst Chris was going through Betty’s extensive photo albums of her life at Brians house, that he came across a couple of files packed with photos, sales brochures, invoices, and notes about the designs of her toys. Having gone through it all, Chris half jokingly suggested that there was enough information there to restart the toy factory. Within a couple of weeks the idea became a reality and Betty Bashall Toys re emerged with 3 generations of Bashalls involved, Brian (Betty's
son), Philip and Chris (Brians sons) and Sam (Chris's daughter).

A spare workshop in Dunsfold was equipped with Mostly old Wadkins traditional woodworking equipment sourced from E-Bay and work started on prototypes of Betty's original designs which are at production status.

Chris says :
"Whilst cutting up some basic building block prototypes. it became noticeable that the arch blocks resembled the rear wings on a series I 80", from there the idea for a Land Rover building block puzzle evolved. The initial idea was that it would be an eductional toy for children, but as the various prototypes developed, we noticed that the adults were really enjoying it as well and it was proving too difficult for very young children, so we developed it with the older child and adults in mind."

The aim is to release a number of these puzzles all based on different models in the Dunsfold Collection of Land Rovers. A percentage of each sale will be donated to the funds to help with the costs of maintaining a Land Rover collection of this size.