Withypool, Somerset

 

Pump heaven

I’m not quite sure why I like old petrol pumps and garages. As far as the pumps are concerned it’s partly, I think, nostalgia and partly design – the lovely advertising globes on the tops of the pumps and the lines of the pumps themselves, which altered from one decade to the next as fashions changed. I think these Beckmeter pumps in the village of Withypool are probably from the 1960s. The shape, all straight lines, and the frames of chrome around the dials certainly look as if they’re from that decade, and online sources suggest I’m right. These pumps would be at home in front of a flat-roofed building with a large area of plate glass on the front. By the 1970s, similar-shaped pumps were still fashionable, but they increasingly had digital displays – the ones in which the digits were set on cylinders that rotated, bringing the next number gradually to the front. The star system for rating petrol (the pump in the foreground has two stars) came in during 1967, so that fits too, although the panel at the top where the stars are located was probably something that the garage owner or petrol company could change with ease. The shell-shaped globes, of course, are throwbacks to an earlier era. Shell globes in a similar design go back to 1929; the details of the design evolved, and the Shell globes were fitted to all kinds of different pumps.

Beckmeter pumps were ubiquitous back in the sixties and seventies. The company was founded as a general engineering concern in the Victorian era, and they gradually came to specialise in water meters and vales. When cars became increasingly common, in the interwar period, Beck’s adapted their water meter designs for use with petrol and soon manufacturing petrol pumps was a major part of their business. Of course these pumps lasted for years, and it was possible in, say, the 1980s, to find 30- or 40-year old pumps dispensing fuel. Hence their survival at filling stations like this one, long closed, in a remote Exmoor village.

I find the sight of them still lined up at a stone-built filling station, its woodwork painted to match the red of the Shell colours, very satisfying. Even more satisfying is that there’s an even older (1940s or 1950s) Avery-Hardoll pump (photo below) just across the road. Again, this one, now missing its globe, appears typical of its time – the tapering shape of the pump body and the script-style lettering of the Avery-Hardoll name look the part and the period.

Now there’s as much of a demand for coffee as for petrol, the forecourt with the Beckmeter pumps at Withypool has been taken over by a table, and refreshment is available from the building next door. So there’s a good reason for cyclists and walkers to stop here as well as motorists, and a good reason, I’d argue, for all of them to admire these examples of historical engineering and design.

Edmondthorpe, Leicestershire

Mouthwatering

This blog is, of course, supposed to be an account of my encounters with buildings, but I’ll include something else occasionally if it seems to me buildings-related or has an architectural quality to it – gate piers, pillar boxes, milestones and the like have all featured here. Hence this village pump, which caught my eye for its obelisk-like form, its puzzling inscription, and its impressive dragon spout. The pump is made of iron – cast iron for the casing and spout, wrought for the handle, I believe.

Whose idea could it have been to erect such an eyecatcher for the village water supply? Presumably the bearer of the initials W.A.P. who, according to an online source, was William Ann Pochin (1844–1901), Lord of the Manor of Bourne Abbots, although he lived in Edmondthorpe Hall. He is said to have restored a number of houses in the village. The houses remain, although the hall burned down in 1943. As to the striking design of the spout, the Pochin coat of arms is the sign near the school just behind the pump, and I couldn’t see anything resembling a dragon in it. However, makers of pumps and those who channel natural springs do sometimes make spouts in the form of such beasts – I’ve seen dragon- or serpent-heads before with water rather than fire spurting out of them. The people of the village were no doubt pleased to have a reliable water supply. This passer-by was delighted to come across such a visual amenity.

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* This structure is a listed ‘building’ and the listing text confirms the material. Foolishly, I did’t strike it when I was there, to see what sound it made. It’s often worth tapping or hitting structures as the dull sound of wood is very different from the knock or ring of metal. Beware, though – if you hit too hard you can come off badly in the endeavour!

Thorpeness, Suffolk

Moving building

For as long as I can remember, I’ve admired the combination of ingenuity and functionalism represented by the typical English post mill. The main body of the windmill is designed as a lightweight wooden structure so that it can turn to enable the sails to catch the wind. A small circular sail, the fantail, sticks out behind and powers the mechanism that turns the mill. The base – usually known as the roundhouse – is stationary and anchored to the ground like any other conventional masonry building. This collection of mechanisms and structures can look a little ungainly, with the large wooden upper structure apparently balancing in a precarious fashion on top of the roundhouse, like a tall uprooted shed. But it works, and some post mills have turned for hundreds of years.

This one was first built in 1803 at Aldringham and was moved two miles along the road to Thorpeness in 1923. Its new job was to pump water from a well into the tall water tower that supplied the village – the tower featured in my precious post. It pumped away at Thorpeness until 1940 , when it was replaced by an engine. Repainted and preserved, the post mill must look as spick and span now as it ever has done in its two-century life. It survives as a reminder of the lasting importance of wind power in this part of the country, a power source that looks to be becoming increasingly important as the need for renewable energy grows more and more pressing.

Farmington, Gloucestershire

England and New England

Farmington’s lovely octagonal stone bus shelter, featured in my previous post, has a still more elaborate counterpart on the village green: the pump house. This is another eight-sided structure with a complex tiled roof topped with a little lantern feature with an ogee cupola. This architectural jeu d’esprit was built as a memorial to Edmund Waller, the lord of the manor, who died in 1898. The roof was originally thatched, but the thatch – presumably in need of replacement by the mid-1930s – was replaced with Cotswold stone tiles in 1935. This work was paid for by the people of Farmington Connecticut, to commemorate their state’s 300th birthday.

The Cotswold stone tiles look just as good as thatch on the roof, and are perfectly in keeping with the architecture of the village, making the pump house a double memorial, to Waller and to the links between England and North America. The reroofing was a generous gesture by the people of the American Farmington, and as the leaves turn yellow and orange, this English scene might well remind us of the autumnal colours of New England. Local distinctiveness can also have a global dimension.

East Haddon, Northamptonshire

Small and shapely

Sometimes it’s the little things that make the difference. I’ve highlighted quite a few tiny buildings on this blog, from drinking fountains to village lock-ups, often noticing how a small building can take an unusual form – with domed or pyramidal roof, for example. This tiny pump house in East Haddon, it seems to me, is such a structure. Users, whether drawing water here or just stopping to pass the time of day, must have been grateful for the shelter; it continues to enliven a quiet corner of the village now its pumping days are over. How much better than the bare, unprotected pump in the Lincolnshire village where I spent my first couple of years;* I’m told I liked toddling to the pump with my mother in the fervent hope that our journey would coincide with one of the visits of the ice-cream man.

I don’t know how old this little structure is. Online sources claim that it was built in the 16th century. But if so, it must be like the woodsman’s favourite old axe, which had a handle so comfortable he fashioned a replacement with exactly the same shape when it gave out, and a head so well balanced that when its edge was worn away by repeated sharpenings he got the blacksmith to make a new one that was the twin of the first. That attractive conical thatched roof will have been replaced quite a few times over the years, and I expect the timber uprights have been renewed too. If asked to guess, I’d have said that the design was redolent of the late-18th or early-19th centuries, when ‘rustic’ porches on cottages, with overhanging thatched roofs and knobbly timber supports au naturel were all the rage. Whatever its date, I’m pleased to add it to my virtual collection of small but well formed buildings.

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*In the late-1950s. I’m told it took a few more years for running water and mains electricity to reach this outpost.

Rhydd, Worcestershire

Pumpery

By the side of a road a few miles outside elegant, hilly Malvern, in the flat country between the villages of Guarlford and Rhydd, is this small corrugated-iron building, now partly surrounded by grass, weeds, and elderberries. Driving past many times, I took it to be a farm outbuilding, but then I noticed the way it faces right on to the road and the presence of a very old petrol pump at one corner. There’s an enamel warning sign about the dangers of petroleum spirit too, its red lettering still clear against a white background, now partly obscured by the elder. I assume, then, that this was once a small garage, supplying fuel to cars on the way to and from Malvern and also to vehicles associated with the neighbouring farm.* Like so many early garages and pumps, it is right by the roadside (the tarmac is just out of shot), so that the motorist had just to stop and refuel. Since Malvern is the home of the Morgan Motor Company, I have mental images of early three-wheelers and 4/4s pulling up…

In 1927, as car ownership increased in Britain, the Roadside Petrol Pumps Act was passed, giving local councils the power to licence petrol pumps. To start with, these pumps were hand-cranked, but by 1930, electric pumps were being installed on roadsides. World War II brought petrol rationing and the demise of many rural garages, but once the post-war period of austerity was over, there was a steady increase in car ownership again and many new purpose-built garages and filling stations were built. More and more, these were substantial buildings with proper forecourts, on to which one pulled, and eventually safety considerations meant that the old roadside pumps disappeared. The occasional survivor, either rusty like this one or more consciously preserved, remains to remind us of a very different era of motoring.

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*And since this is an assumption, I’d be very interested to hear from anyone who knows more about the history of this building.

Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire

Pump and circumstance*

Sights like this bring back memories of a time when filling up did not involve a major hit on the credit card account and when, with relatively few cars on the road, thoughts of environmental costs were limited mostly to the effects of exhaust fumes on the air quality in big cities. A time, too, when the roads were quiet enough for the pumps to be right on the street, like these. There was no forecourt – you just pulled up and the supply line was long enough to reach your vehicle. These two pumps are on the main street in the centre of Great Missenden, not far from the museum devoted to the life and works of the village’s most famous resident, Roald Dahl. Apparently the Red Pump Garage features in one of Dahl’s books. The bright red pumps very much look the part and presumably their survival is at least in part a tribute to the celebrated author. The notice on the door says they have been “Out of fuel” since eight gallons cost more than a litre. In other words, the place has been closed for years – but it is still a repository of memories.

*Not my joke, alas. This line has already been used as the title of a book on gas stations and by manufacturers of ballet shoes.