British Benzol, Bridge Garage, Dunsbridge Turnpike, Shepreth, Cambridgeshire, spring 2002
On the A10 just before the start of the Melbourn bypass, this site was redeveloped as part of Dunsbridge Business Park goo.gl/maps/DfLPbJj2jASzF46r7
Once upon a time this was a Nuffield (Morris, Riley, Wolseley) dealer as in the advert on p15 here www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/uploads/9/1/6/2/9162503/6601...
What we see here in the photos is not just a British Benzol forecourt—interesting as that is anyway—but one which reveals something else about the company's history: the Hickey logo on the shop-front. This was a Hickey site incorporated into the growing British Benzol business in the late 80s or early 90s. Hickey were based at Harefield Oil Terminal near Uxbridge, with a few sites to the north and west of London. This (on the A10) and one on the A40 in Buckinghamshire might have been the highest-profile ones.
British Benzol had a complicated history that I haven't quite got to the bottom of yet. It was an old-established coal distillation, mining, and coke producing company, originally based at Bedwas colliery in south Wales, and presumably supplying benzole to petrol companies, but I don't think selling it under their own name.
But by the mid-80s as the mining business declined, they branched out into lubricants and liquid fuels. British Benzol plc bought JC Abbott of Barnsley, who then became the retail petrol and lubricants arm of the company. The initial British Benzol petrol stations were I think company owned, larger sites. They only had 10. In 1987 British Benzol was reversed into by Powerscreen, a company making mobile mining/quarrying screening equipment, and pretty quickly the petrol / oil business was sold off and the company became Powerscreen International plc.
I don't know the sequence of exactly what happened at this point but the British Benzol fuels business, combined with the businesses of Hickey, and Pronto Heating Oils (based on the Uxbridge Road not far from Hickey's base), re-emerged, based at Harefield Oil Terminal (the former Hickey site), run by Dennis Woods who built it into quite a large oil (and fuel card) business, although with relatively few petrol stations, and mostly quite small dealers.
Note here also that the left-hand pump has a (very faded / washed out) newer British Benzol sticker, with the 'spike' logo.
British Benzol, Bridge Garage, Dunsbridge Turnpike, Shepreth, Cambridgeshire, spring 2002
On the A10 just before the start of the Melbourn bypass, this site was redeveloped as part of Dunsbridge Business Park goo.gl/maps/DfLPbJj2jASzF46r7
Once upon a time this was a Nuffield (Morris, Riley, Wolseley) dealer as in the advert on p15 here www.100yearsofcoconuts.co.uk/uploads/9/1/6/2/9162503/6601...
What we see here in the photos is not just a British Benzol forecourt—interesting as that is anyway—but one which reveals something else about the company's history: the Hickey logo on the shop-front. This was a Hickey site incorporated into the growing British Benzol business in the late 80s or early 90s. Hickey were based at Harefield Oil Terminal near Uxbridge, with a few sites to the north and west of London. This (on the A10) and one on the A40 in Buckinghamshire might have been the highest-profile ones.
British Benzol had a complicated history that I haven't quite got to the bottom of yet. It was an old-established coal distillation, mining, and coke producing company, originally based at Bedwas colliery in south Wales, and presumably supplying benzole to petrol companies, but I don't think selling it under their own name.
But by the mid-80s as the mining business declined, they branched out into lubricants and liquid fuels. British Benzol plc bought JC Abbott of Barnsley, who then became the retail petrol and lubricants arm of the company. The initial British Benzol petrol stations were I think company owned, larger sites. They only had 10. In 1987 British Benzol was reversed into by Powerscreen, a company making mobile mining/quarrying screening equipment, and pretty quickly the petrol / oil business was sold off and the company became Powerscreen International plc.
I don't know the sequence of exactly what happened at this point but the British Benzol fuels business, combined with the businesses of Hickey, and Pronto Heating Oils (based on the Uxbridge Road not far from Hickey's base), re-emerged, based at Harefield Oil Terminal (the former Hickey site), run by Dennis Woods who built it into quite a large oil (and fuel card) business, although with relatively few petrol stations, and mostly quite small dealers.
Note here also that the left-hand pump has a (very faded / washed out) newer British Benzol sticker, with the 'spike' logo.