Dennis acquired the design rights to Seymour Sports Ground rollers of Derby from Castwell foundry and a range of powered rollers was produced from early 1990’s to 2003 when low volumes meant it was no longer viable to continue.
In 1990 Howardson purchased JP mowers from Cliftons of Woking who had bought the company from the receivers of JP Engineering, Leicester back in 1972. JP had been a victim of the Rolls Royce collapse of 1971 as they had been a major supplier of machined components to them.
The JP mower had a reputation as the ‘Rolls Royce’ of domestic lawnmowers and many hundreds of machines are still in use today. Their range originally covered from 10” push mowers through to 24” self propelled cylinder mowers.
Co-incidentally JP had started producing mowers in 1922 the same year as Dennis. The acquisition was a great boost to Howardson who saw the potential of the machine to fill the gap in the bowls, cricket and golf market that the traditional Dennis products had never filled.
The JP cassette system, originally designed in the early 1960’s was the basis of the design for scarifiers, vericutters, brushes and a multitude of other options. This concept was the basis of the FT430, 510 and 610 as well as the Supersix.