Holdsworth ID
 

Seems to be a lot more viewers in this section, so apologies for a re-post.

I bought this Holdsworth frame cheap because it really needs a strip and respray. On closer inspection it seems to be a nice quality frame with some unusual details so I'm curious about age and model, and I'm thinking it deserves a nice rebuild.

The rear forks seem very thin, they taper to about 5mm diameter at the point where they are welded to the seat tube. I don't recall seeing forks attached to the main seat tube in this way before, although I'm no expert.

The lugs have some nice cut out details and there's a grease nipple on the frame for the bottom bracket. It must be quite a few years since grease nipples were used? The cable guides are brazed on.

The rear drop out is spaced at 120mm.

Unfortunately, there's no head tube badge. Someone has had their own name on the frame, Carole Jones and painted their initials where the headtube badge was.

There's an extensive site for Holdsworth but I can't find anything like this one on there or google. A useful bit of information I did read was that Holdsworth stamped the frame number on the fork blades tube as well as the bottom bracket.

I stripped down the headset and the number on the fork tube is 242, which seems a very short number as a frame number. I've cleaned the paint off the bottom bracket and it does have a corresponding 242 stamped on it. There are also a couple of other numbers on the BB along with British stamped in an arch. G5364 and what looks like SR23.

If anyone has any idea of the model or age, what running gear do you think I should use for a rebuild, I'd like to get the right period parts if I can.

Let me know if you need any other details to try and help ID it, and thanks for any help.

very early (like '40s, maybe '50s) whatever it is...could be a Holdsworth, but as you say those lugs don't correspond to the published patterns in the catalogs. Could be one of the "other" brands associated with Holdsworth: Claud Butler, Freddie Grubbs or one of the Holdsworth builders who might have freelanced (Bill Hurlow, Owen Bryers...there may be others). Any sign of holes (might be filled-in) for a headbadge: most of these brands would have used a metal badge. The dropouts are similar to those on Claud Butlers, but others may have used them too.
This is one for Hillary Stone or Norris Lockley to solve!

Thanks unworthy, I must admit I'm saying Holdsworth because of the remains of the transfer you can just see on pic 3. From what I've seen on google, that type of transfer does seem later than this frame. There are two small holes where the head badge had been. Its the way the rear forks are attached to the frame that I find unusual. Thanks for the tips on the names, I'm away to do some more googling! Hopefully Hillary Stone or Norris Lockley will see this thread!

It's an OK frame, and fun, but if Bill Hurlow had anything to do with it, he's spinning in his grave.

yeah, I wasn't trying to slight the talents of the talented Mr. Hurlow, or suggest he built anything this pedestrian, either. Just throwing out names that might help in the OP's searching...assuming there's any legitimate reason to connect that frame to Holdsworth.