I take it that we are talking about Fletcher’s of Gloucester which became Fletchers (Sports) Ltd circa 1955.
An interwar BSA made and branded BLE (a plain gun, but quite attractive wood) is marked on the rib in front of the BSA markings “Supplied by E. Fletcher and Sons, Gunmakers, Gloucester”.
Nigel Brown does not show a Birmingham or a factory address for them so probably most Fletcher guns, at least in their later years, would have been made up in the Birmingham trade.
As they went back to 1841 it is entirely possible that in muzzle loading days they could have built guns in house.
My father bought me (and I still have) my first proper air rifle, a .22 BSA Meteor, which we had seen advertised in the Field (complete with plastic scope) from them in 1959. We had gone into Edwinson Green in Cheltenham to try to buy one there, but Dudley Green (grandson of Edwinson and then proprietor) grumbled “It’ll be months before we see any of those”.
So we drove over to Gloucester where Fletchers had a stack of Meteor boxed sets on the shelf.
Fletchers later took over Syd Tonge’s toy and model shop in Winchcombe Street, Cheltenham and opened a gun department there in the 1960’s. My mother had bought me my first air gun (a smooth bore Diana Model 1 - the British made version) at Syd Tonge’s not long after the last Coronation. I still remember how proud of it I was as we walked back home along the Promenade.
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