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Petrol pumps & filling stations of the past

The Baron

master brummie
Remember when petrol cost 1/3d per gallon not £1.09 per Litre, Found this sign on our Hols in Somerset last weekend.
WOW Was it ever that cheap?
ASTON
 
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The old pump in Alan's post is the same as the one we had at Watsons in Villa Street, it was just inside the fence and had an arm that swung out over the footpath, It worked on a wind up rack, bottom to top for each gallon, a nice arm ache when the trucks wanted twenty gallons.
The first place I worked at was on the Chester Road at Streetly (by the Parson and Clerk) they had four pumps all with different company globes on, I can remember there was Power and National Benzole and I think Shell Mex an BP but the petrol was all the same 'Pool' petrol the wartime stuff.
 
Linked to the theme of petrol pumps:
Not quite Birmingham but there is a pub in Shirley, on Stratford Road called "The Pump House".
Ths is its pub sign
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Why is it called this? I gather there are photos and a history inside but it is on the site of one of the first garages opened in Shirley. Referred to by my Mom as "Wood's Garage".
 
The old pump in Alan's post is the same as the one we had at Watsons in Villa Street, it was just inside the fence and had an arm that swung out over the footpath, It worked on a wind up rack, bottom to top for each gallon, a nice arm ache when the trucks wanted twenty gallons.
The first place I worked at was on the Chester Road at Streetly (by the Parson and Clerk) they had four pumps all with different company globes on, I can remember there was Power and National Benzole and I think Shell Mex an BP but the petrol was all the same 'Pool' petrol the wartime stuff.
eric living in villa st at the time you was working at watsons i must have walked past that pump many times but being a youngster would not have taken much notice of it

lyn
 
This is 578 Pershore Road, posted by Stitcher on the Street Furniture thread. A lot of pumps squeezed onto a small space. Viv.


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Today, all signs of its use have gone and the shop has reverted to residential use. But a little further along Pershore Road, next to the Selly Oak Tavern, is a modern Esso station. Viv.

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Here are some photos taken for a school project of 3 different garages for which I do not have a location (hint!!!! - they will be somewhere in Lozells / Hockley / Aston area). Interesting old petrol pumps on these - not sure on the dates (late 70's I think) but 4* and 5* fuel was a whopping £1.38 a gallon! Struggle to get a litre for that today.........
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Great photos all. Surely there must have been a point where petrol pumps couldn’t be located within a certain distance of domestic premises? Some of the old pumps look dangerously close to houses. Viv.
 
Above them you may well have seen one of these - taken somewhere (do not know where) in Aston in the late 70's - bet it is not there now!
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This signage would have gone by 1976 as Shell Mex & BP split from each other end of 1975. Their employees and sales were split 60% Shell and 40% BP, initially at the end of June 1975 I was branded BP but Changed to Shell by year end.
 
Great photos all. Surely there must have been a point where petrol pumps couldn’t be located within a certain distance of domestic premises? Some of the old pumps look dangerously close to houses. Viv.
The scientists say a 'minimum' distance of 50 metres should therefore be maintained between petrol stations and housing, and 100 metres for 'especially vulnerable' facilities such as hospitals, health centres, schools and old people's homes.
 
I remember stopping at a house in Derby with a pump in the garden for fuel with my dad in the 50s. you rang the bell and a man come out to serve you.,he put the hose in the tank and started turning a handle on the pump while looking at the gauge it was like the contraption below :grinning:

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