History of Colyford Filling Station

In 1927 the idea for a filling station in the village of Colyford (Devon) was thought of by a farmer by the name of Mr. W.H Davey, who at that time believed there was a necessity for a purpose built petrol station as in the surrounding area there was still only pumps attached to barns on the roadside.

Mr. Davey Invited an architect to design him a filling station and Mr. Kett the architect photographed a petrol station at Countess-Wear in Exeter (the closest city) as an example of a clean, tidy efficient petrol station style. Below shows the photograph of the Countess-Wear petrol station taken at that time.

If you look closely at the photo (click to enlarge) you can see in the background a sign that reads "No Soviet petrol sold here!"

As Countess-Wear filling station was a wooden construction, Mr.Davey felt that Colyford filling station should be of a more substantial construction. So it was a built of block, brick and slightly changed in style with the addition of a typically English mock tudor dormer. It was built by local builders and was completed sometime in 1928. Four Hammond Visible hand operated pumps were fitted and the motor spirits offered were Shell, BP, National Benzole and Redline.

This photograph taken early in 1930 showing the site, was how it would have appeared when Aircraftsman Shaw, more well known as Lawrence of Arabia frequently purchased his petrol for his Brough Superior Motorcycle at the filling station, on his journeys from his home Cloud Hill near Bovington Camp in Dorset to his Royal Airforce posting at Mountbatten at Plymouth. Mr. Davy had supplied his petrol over a number of years and because Lawrence wanted to be anonymous he never said who he was. It was only on seeing his picture in the newspapers following his accident and subsequent death that Mr Davey realised who his customer really was. The photo shown below of Lawrence of Arabia is taken with George Brough outside the “Brough Works” in Nottingham although we are unsure of the actual date when the photo was taken.

At this early time of the Filling station’s operation the Devon County Council considered it to be a prime example of the filling station design they wanted and recommended that this should be how all filling stations should look, particularly in Devon. For at this time filling stations were a mess of signs, pumps and gaudy appearance which all councils were trying to tidy up. In fact in some counties petrol pumps had to be painted green and no enamel signs were allowed to litter the road signs.

1940: With the outbreak of war Colyford Filling Station continued supplying the local community by supplying “pooled petrol” by this we mean that all petrol during the war years was controlled by the Pool Board which was a Government body through which all petrol companies eg. BP, Shell, Esso etc. had to “pool” their fuel and from here it was also rationed. In this respect essential services or reserved occupations such as Doctors, Farmers, Police, Ambulance and the Fire Service would have a greater allocation of fuel coupons than the general public. Below is a digital copy of a days pool board record applying to the filling station.

1950: Rationing ended in this decade and Mr Davey together with his Son home from the war removed the old Hammond Visible petrol pumps and they were replaced by five Avery Hardoll 598’s. These then sold Power, Shell, National Benzole, BP and Super Shell (see photograph). During this decade petrol sales increased due to the availability of motor cars, the increasing amount of money in peoples pockets and the desire to be independent on the road by owning your own motorcar.

1960: During the early part of this decade many filling stations were persuaded to sell only one fuel rather than many. These were known as Solus Sites and Shell became the sole supplier of fuel to Colyford in that the five pumps served Super Shell, Shell and Shell Economy and so it remained for the whole of the 60’s and into the 70’s.

1970: In this decade Mr Davey sold the filling station to Mr Stevens and he and his wife continued to run it. However Shell abandoned him because of the low volume of fuel sales which did not reach the contractual figures. He then took his supplies from Anglo Petroleum.

1980s: Mr Stevens put a planning application in to build two houses on the west side of the site, the present owner, Robin Barnard, approached him with a view to purchasing the site to build a house. However, Mr Stevens was of the opinion that he could get two more houses on the site of the Filling Station and would therefore demolish the building. Mr Barnard agreed to purchase the two sites and the Filling Station as one to prevent this from happening. Mr Barnard took over the site on the 2nd January 1982 and immediately started to refurbish the site and shop. Among the first to go were three of the five Avery Hardoll pumps (although not thrown away!) and replaced by two modern blender pumps with currency display and shutoff nozzles. The following picture shows the Filling Station as it looked post-refurbishment.

The Filling Station sold Anglo petrol in 1982 but was changed to Shaw Petroleum who had supplied the replacement pumps. They remained on the forecourt until Shaw was taken over by UK Petroleum. In this period the litreage increased from approximately 150,000 litres per annum to 650,000 and it was at this point in 1988 that Shell UK showed an interest in the station and proposed a five year contract in which they would restore the original pumps and have them converted to litres. The upgrade also included two new tanks and pipeworks. The photograph below shows the Station after the Shell upgrade in May 1989:

Throughout the 1990s sales increased and by 1994 were just short of 1 million litres per annum and another 5 year contract was agreed with Shell. However in 1995 Shell had a change of policy which resulted in small petrol stations being allowed to break their contracts and source fuel from alternative suppliers. Colyford Filling Station intended for Shell to honour their contract and the partnership remained until 1999.

After the Shell contract finished, Texaco supplied the station with fuel until September 2001 when it was deemed to no longer be profitable to continue trading. At this point the idea of preserving the Station as part of a museum was conceived and an extension was built on the side of the building in the same style as the original to house the memorabilia collection. The photograph below shows the museum after the construction of the new building:

 

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