The Humer Unbeam Interesting Filling Stations Thread
Discussion
penrhos said:
Here's the Bloomsbury garage in its car oriented days:
https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2014/04/30/eve...
I filled up at the bird seed one years back (no armed robberies during the 5 minutes I was there).
I remember that back in the late 1980s there was a very, very old fashioned place on that stretch of the A41 - literally a wooden shed and three old style pumps with Shell globes on them. But I can't remember exactly where it was. My memory has it on a bend very close to the Bloomsbury Garage but there seems to be no sign of it now.
Can't say I remember a wooden garage around here but did find this picture of a garage at the north end of Prees on the A49 c1972https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2014/04/30/eve...
I filled up at the bird seed one years back (no armed robberies during the 5 minutes I was there).
I remember that back in the late 1980s there was a very, very old fashioned place on that stretch of the A41 - literally a wooden shed and three old style pumps with Shell globes on them. But I can't remember exactly where it was. My memory has it on a bend very close to the Bloomsbury Garage but there seems to be no sign of it now.
And as it is now
The Esso garage at South end of Prees (Prees green) has also changed use
Ardennes92 said:
Can't say I remember a wooden garage around here but did find this picture of a garage at the north end of Prees
That actually looks quite similar to it - though it can't have been as we never used the A49! I'll remember eventually.storminnorman said:
I've been trying to Photograph this little petrol station for around 4 years now. An early morning run up the A9 allowed me to stop and get it at long last. This is in Brora. If it's been posted before I apologise. 
No Fuel Available by Squiffy1308, on Flickr
No Fuel Available by Squiffy1308, on Flickr
DickyC said:
The A505 north of Royston. I reckon it was the location that led to its ruin. You come across it suddenly and then it's too late to turn in. I pulled in on my third pass even though I knew it was there and wanted to turn in. The other problem is pulling out again into the traffic; chaps coming at you over the rise at a rate of knots.
There are vehicles mouldering in the back lot as well. Who could have done such a thing?
I know it well.There are vehicles mouldering in the back lot as well. Who could have done such a thing?
You’re right, the location must have killed it. The road leading up to it is fast dual carriageway on an uphill section and the garage sits just over the crest behind some trees.
Must have been terrifying trying to pull out of the garage fully laden with fuel.
I’ve always thought the section just after the garage is a mini ‘eau rouge’ as it dips, swerves right, rises steeply and then curves left. (Well it is to me anyway - helps pass the boredom after a long commute)
First time I've visited this thread, Dicky, and I havent looked through all the pages so not sure if this petrol station in Kettlewell in the Yorkshire Dales has been previously mentioned?
We stopped off for a rendezvous here last September and I was amused at the broad choice of fuel grades...
Still in regular use supplying the local community and passing TVR drivers.
We stopped off for a rendezvous here last September and I was amused at the broad choice of fuel grades...
Still in regular use supplying the local community and passing TVR drivers.
Benjo42 said:
Wow thanks for this link or I would have never known this Little chef icon from my childhood had once been a petrol station! I see it still now, but looking very sorry for itself after the chef has gone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markham_Moor
I know this site has been done to death all over the 'net, but it really is sad to see the place in such a sad state of decay now. I drive past quite a lot with work and everytime I do I think it's such a shame it just sits there rotting away. Given it's significance and listed status, it's surprising nobody has attempted to do anything with it.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markham_Moor
A fruitful day yesterday in the world of Humer Unbeam. In the morning I received a call asking if I'd fetch a car from the Lincolnshire Fens near Boston. It took forever to get there. The roads in the fens are either okay, bad or unbelievably bad. Mile after mile of potholes. And I bet it's a bit bleak up there in the winter. Anyway, eventually I arrived in New Leake at Spilsby Road Garage. It looked like a private house with lots of cars but it had at one time sold petrol.
The middle section of the front wall is where the pumps were: pump, shack, pump. The owner said the shack was never locked. The original tanks are still there and the later tanks are beneath the camper by the fence. One is now used for waste oil and the other for heating oil for the house and workshop behind. It's a family business specialising in Mercedes. I asked about other old, derelict and interesting garages locally. There had been three in the village at one time, all in the same road. The village had everything it needed: a butcher, a baker, grocer, greengrocer, garages, pubs. Some folk lived and died there without ever leaving the village.
Off topic - there was a pill box by the fen itself. I thought pill boxes were a southern thing to slow the advancing Germans if they invaded. Wrong again.
With the other two garages on the village long ago converted to houses, the owner gave me details of two more. One sounded really familiar. I was about three miles from the garage in Wainfleet posted by storminnorman ten days ago. What are the chances? Yup, still functioning.
The pump has 'Grandad Rights' whereby you couldn't build that arrangement now but it survives new regulations because it's always been like that. Nice.
And then off to find the other one in Mareham Le Fen. On the way I found a couple more.
This one in Irby.
And this busier one in Spilsby.
Then to Kirkby.
"Do you have any pictures of the old days?"
"No, we came in one morning and the place had been ransacked. All the old stuff had gone. We've got this one. A drunk man was driving round selling aerial pictures to anyone who'd listen. He wanted forty pounds. He didn't get it." The garage predates RAF Kirkby which takes up most of the picture with the garage on the bend halfway up the left hand side of the photo.
And then to Mareham Le Fen.
And then, as you leave the village, you come to what I was looking for. The forecourt is now a layby and the pumps I suspect largely ignored.
Love the colours.
The middle section of the front wall is where the pumps were: pump, shack, pump. The owner said the shack was never locked. The original tanks are still there and the later tanks are beneath the camper by the fence. One is now used for waste oil and the other for heating oil for the house and workshop behind. It's a family business specialising in Mercedes. I asked about other old, derelict and interesting garages locally. There had been three in the village at one time, all in the same road. The village had everything it needed: a butcher, a baker, grocer, greengrocer, garages, pubs. Some folk lived and died there without ever leaving the village.
Off topic - there was a pill box by the fen itself. I thought pill boxes were a southern thing to slow the advancing Germans if they invaded. Wrong again.
With the other two garages on the village long ago converted to houses, the owner gave me details of two more. One sounded really familiar. I was about three miles from the garage in Wainfleet posted by storminnorman ten days ago. What are the chances? Yup, still functioning.
The pump has 'Grandad Rights' whereby you couldn't build that arrangement now but it survives new regulations because it's always been like that. Nice.
And then off to find the other one in Mareham Le Fen. On the way I found a couple more.
This one in Irby.
And this busier one in Spilsby.
Then to Kirkby.
"Do you have any pictures of the old days?"
"No, we came in one morning and the place had been ransacked. All the old stuff had gone. We've got this one. A drunk man was driving round selling aerial pictures to anyone who'd listen. He wanted forty pounds. He didn't get it." The garage predates RAF Kirkby which takes up most of the picture with the garage on the bend halfway up the left hand side of the photo.
And then to Mareham Le Fen.
And then, as you leave the village, you come to what I was looking for. The forecourt is now a layby and the pumps I suspect largely ignored.
Love the colours.
horpe, my local garage (we had two but both sadly gone, I'm looking for pics of the other) 
Rat_Fink_67 said:
Benjo42 said:
Wow thanks for this link or I would have never known this Little chef icon from my childhood had once been a petrol station! I see it still now, but looking very sorry for itself after the chef has gone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markham_Moor
Thanks to this I now have a favourite term for the month - hyperbolic parabaloid - as seen above. Just been reading this;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markham_Moor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Scorer
- the wiki on the architect (seems there are a few similar roof designs left in Lincs. - note to self; allow time for a sojourn in Lincoln and alarm the wife even more by photogaphing elegant roof designs).
Last week our holiday in Wales turned up a couple of redundant filling stations (there are many, many around here), this one being in Cardigan on the road to St. Ismael;
Rat_Fink_67 said:
I know this site has been done to death all over the 'net, but it really is sad to see the place in such a sad state of decay now. I drive past quite a lot with work and everytime I do I think it's such a shame it just sits there rotting away. Given it's significance and listed status, it's surprising nobody has attempted to do anything with it.
It looks a lot better than that these days (regular route for me too); they did some remedial works a few years ago and the roof is in much better nick as well as the general state of repair and grounds. But it's still up for lease since forever.DickyC said:
A fruitful day yesterday in the world of Humer Unbeam. In the morning I received a call asking if I'd fetch a car from the Lincolnshire Fens near Boston.(...)
With the other two garages on the village long ago converted to houses, the owner gave me details of two more. One sounded really familiar. I was about three miles from the garage in Wainfleet posted by storminnorman ten days ago. What are the chances? Yup, still functioning.
With the other two garages on the village long ago converted to houses, the owner gave me details of two more. One sounded really familiar. I was about three miles from the garage in Wainfleet posted by storminnorman ten days ago. What are the chances? Yup, still functioning.
Glad you enjoyed your jaunt in the Fens, you captured some pure Fen essence by the looks of things. It's such a strange place, you're never far from a garden full of old cars or something of that ilk.I'd like to submit this from the borders of Scotland - Langholm on the A7 - I have known it for years and vaguely remember it functioning.
Interestingly enough the buildings behind form part of the oldest distillery in Scotland.
http://lostdistillery.com/03lowlands-south/langhol...
On Thursday I had to collect a car from a garage a few miles north west of Carmarthen. As I wasn't instructed until half past one, by the time I arrived at just before five the only staff left was the lady on the till in the filling station. Without spelling out that her garage didn't qualify, I asked about interesting filling stations locally and she directed me way out into the countryside to the Lodge Garage at Bryn Iwan. It's a hamlet near the village of Trelech at the junction of two B roads. Considering the population of Trelech and the surrounding settlements is 745, Bryn Iwan is small. There's a bus at 18.07 on Monday if you're quick. And yet the garage had been huge.
A car still on the lift? There's a story there.
As I needed some diesel I stopped at the garage on the way back and told the lady I'd found it okay. She told me the garage had a very good name. If you needed fuel any time day or night you just knocked on the door of the bungalow and they'd come out and serve you. A way of life gone forever.
A car still on the lift? There's a story there.
As I needed some diesel I stopped at the garage on the way back and told the lady I'd found it okay. She told me the garage had a very good name. If you needed fuel any time day or night you just knocked on the door of the bungalow and they'd come out and serve you. A way of life gone forever.
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