Gulf - Howard Watts Garage, Riddelsdell Service Station, Boxford, Suffolk CO10 5HH 18
Claimed to be the oldest automotive garage in Europe, Riddelsdell Garage, now under the name Howard Watts, in Boxford, first opened for business in 1900, thus making it now 124 years old. Their website has plenty of history on it and lots of older images. Sadly there are almost none that give any branding history in the earlier part of the post war era, there's a jump from pre-war to 1987 when they were selling Esso petrol and an Austin Rover dealership apart from one old image I've seen where there is a National Benzole sign outside.
A few other Flickr users have older images of the garage, Spottedlaurel has the oldest image showing it still Austin Rover dealers and a single Esso branded pump can be seen. Saintdino has ones of it when Esso branded, then Subaru and Isuzu dealers, I reckon that image is from about 1995. Dan Lockton too has photos of the garage from
more recent times, 2012 by which time the garage had been Gulf branded for a decade, and Richard has one from much the same period too. All can be seen below.
My first images of the garage were taken in 2019 when there was a far better view of the small forecourt, and now these, four years later, on a Sunday when cars parked across the site for the weekend meant the view of the pumps was not great!
www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.0289372,0.8622546,3a,75y,9.37h,...
Gulf - Howard Watts Garage, Riddelsdell Service Station, Boxford, Suffolk CO10 5HH 18
Claimed to be the oldest automotive garage in Europe, Riddelsdell Garage, now under the name Howard Watts, in Boxford, first opened for business in 1900, thus making it now 124 years old. Their website has plenty of history on it and lots of older images. Sadly there are almost none that give any branding history in the earlier part of the post war era, there's a jump from pre-war to 1987 when they were selling Esso petrol and an Austin Rover dealership apart from one old image I've seen where there is a National Benzole sign outside.
A few other Flickr users have older images of the garage, Spottedlaurel has the oldest image showing it still Austin Rover dealers and a single Esso branded pump can be seen. Saintdino has ones of it when Esso branded, then Subaru and Isuzu dealers, I reckon that image is from about 1995. Dan Lockton too has photos of the garage from
more recent times, 2012 by which time the garage had been Gulf branded for a decade, and Richard has one from much the same period too. All can be seen below.
My first images of the garage were taken in 2019 when there was a far better view of the small forecourt, and now these, four years later, on a Sunday when cars parked across the site for the weekend meant the view of the pumps was not great!
www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.0289372,0.8622546,3a,75y,9.37h,...