The pictures below show what is though to be the first batch of 'Box Ford' lathes produced by Denford during 1948 at their Box-Trees Mill plant at Wheatley, near Halifax in Yorkshire, England. The lathes are all 3-step flat-belt final drive - an arrangement that the author has never encountered on a used machine. These early lathes had an integral countershaft unit of unusual and ingenious design where the pulley system and motor were both mounted on a platform that could be slide forwards and backwards on two bars fastened to the back of the headstock-end bed foot. The movement was activated by a quick-action thread controlled by a handle on the end of a shaft protruded through the bed foot at the headstock-end of the lathe.