New Garage For Newport Pagnell!

[CitroJim]

Plans to build a vintage Shell garage in my town have been rumoured ever since the last Shell garage closed on the site years ago.

It now looks like it may be happening

This is fantastic news for Newport Pagnell and fits in nicely with the Aston Martin Heritage Works just up the road.

World First Vintage Shell Garage on Woad Corner

I pass the site every day and was delighted to see work appear to commence about 10 days ago with site clearance taking place and hoardings being built... This week some construction apparatus has arrived...

The delay has been the need to decontaminate the site of old oil and diesel from a leaking tank and to ensure it is clean...

Funnily enough, in the last days of the old garage trading I got my credit card scammed there!

[Stickyfinger]

Retro


From the plans it looks more like a shop/cafe than a garage however

[CitroJim]

Yes, it's primarily a tourist attraction...

[NewcastleFalcon]

Now this is equally as nice but in a very different style, and also "sells" BP and Shell



There was a Shell Garage in our village which was bang on the pavement of the "High Street" so the tubes went over the top of the pavement so pedestrians could walk underneath, and used to dangle down and be tied up at the roadside.

The very garage....probably in the 1930's, altough the tubes were still dangling in the 60's when I was walking past!



Regards Neil

[van ordinaire]

Yes, it's primarily a tourist attraction...

How very American, although I suppose vintage "gas stations" form a large part of their national heritage.

Amazed to see pumps on the pavement, presumably outside the proprietor's residence, in a couple of Irish villages - yesterday!

[CitroJim]

Amazed to see pumps on the pavement, presumably outside the proprietor's residence, in a couple of Irish villages - yesterday!

There’s still a garage in Olney, the next town just up the road from here, with pumps on the pavement. Hilary Brock, a small Ford dealer...

Granted the pavement is well back from the carriageway and is very deep...

[CitroJim]

Here's a picture, courtesy of the 'net:

[NewcastleFalcon]

Now that is a lovely garage, I am hoping that the long tubes are functional, I thought heath and safety would have made that type of arrangement completely extinct, but very much reminds me of the old Black Bull garage of my youth I referred to earlier in the thread. Pool of petrol drips and a carelessly tossed fag end...still the Old Black Bull never burnt down.

Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

Now that is a lovely garage, I am hoping that the long tubes are functional

It's a lovely town Neil Seen very much as the posh end of Newport Pagnell and just and just inside the Bucks border. Go a few paces one way and you're in Bedfordshire and a few paces the other and you're in Northants..

Yes, tubes are still functional!

Speaking of pavement garages, in my childhood home town of Langport there's this pump in the wall..



Long disused, even when I was a kid it was derelict. As of last week it's still there and you can just see the faded price per gallon from when it was last in service... 5/6 I believe, that's five shillings and sixpence in old money! So it was well before 1971 it went out of use.. I can never remember it in use... I must ask dad next time I speak to him...

[NewcastleFalcon]

Speaking of pavement garages, in my childhood home town of Langport there's this pump in the wall..

Yet another excellent image Jim, definitely a nice patina to all on display there The type of thing I would stop, and take a photo of if I came across it.

Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

The whole town has a lovely patina Neil, the building in the picture, a furniture restoration outfit, is quite typical...

[Gibbo2286]

I had one of those Beckmeter pumps together with an Avery Hardol pump in use right up until I sold the business in 1988, the guy who bought the business continued to use them for quite a time after that.

There's an old Avery Hardol pump long forgotten in the hedge here about two minutes walk from my door, I'll get a photo later.

Note the hole in the Beckmeter front for winding the petrol out with a handle when the electric power cuts happened.

[CitroJim]

Note the hole in the Beckmeter front for winding the petrol out with a handle when the electric power cuts happened.

That must have taken quite an effort!

[Gibbo2286]

Note the hole in the Beckmeter front for winding the petrol out with a handle when the electric power cuts happened.

That must have taken quite an effort!

The place I worked at when I left school had an old Gilbarco pump that you wound up a rack for each gallon then wound it back down, now that was an effort, especially when the Southport Sand company turned up in their Commer trucks for twenty gallons.

I could only find one photo of one in very rusty condition. If you go through the pics there's one with the rack showing.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gilbert-And-Bar ... 1494253212

[NewcastleFalcon]

.....another one for the old garage tourist

The Laurel Garage, Ramsbury, Wiltshire to be precise. As of 2009 it had the oldest working petrol pumps in the Country, but was only getting 10 customers per week so it may be doubtful whether it has survived to today. The street view is 2011 so the pumps were still there then.





Interesting little snippet from an article in the local paper about the garage

His forecourt and the yard behind the garage was littered with motoring memorabilia and at one stage the family had no fewer than 35 of the now rare Austin Atlantic, with its unique third headlight in the centre of its grille.

Worth digging out an image of an Austin Atlantic in tribute?

Regards Neil