DERELICT GARAGE IN STEEPLE ASHTON, WILTSHIRE

We decided to drive towards Lyneham today, looking for dereliction, but we didn’t see much, and I had almost given up until we came across three petrol pumps on the forecourt of an old and derelict garage in Steeple Ashton, a village about three miles from Trowbridge.

When I got home, I looked online and it seems that this garage was built in the 1930s and was called Dartmoor Garage, probably after the field on which it was built, by George Moore, who was born in 1910 and went to the village school until he was 13. He served his engineering apprenticeship at the feather factory in Melksham, although how he then built a garage and went from feathers to cars is anyone’s guess!

However, from information online I found out the following from an article written about him in a Wiltshire newspaper: 

"George seemed to put his hand successfully to most things, plumber, blacksmith, tinsmith, welder, machinist, electrician, motor engineer and agricultural engineer. The downside of his ability was that it could take many weeks, if not years, for him to get around to a particular job.  

George was also well known in the area for helping out at various churches and local churches would be a lot poorer without his help and generosity with the repair of their Victorian heating systems, bells and clocks. Many a local clock winder had cause to be grateful after he installed electric winding equipment to the ancient timepieces.  In fact, he took great interest in St Mary's Church, which is just along the road and his hobby was bell ringing.

During the Second World War George ran three large Austin cars as a taxi business and although many might think these pumps as unsightly, they are a memorial to George and a bygone age."

I also did some searching on Ancestry and found out that George was born in 1909 and in 1939 he was living at Dartmoor Garage and his occupation was given as an agricultural and motor engineer.  He died in January 1988 in Bath, which is not that far from Steeple Ashton.

At the back of the property, but behind a gate with a padlock, so I didn’t dare ask Mr. HCB if I could climb over, was a pink cadillac which was obviously derelict and again, looking online, I found that the last Log Book issued for this car, which was an Opel, was in 1990, so whether someone was left this when George died a couple of years earlier, who knows?  It certainly hasn’t moved for a very long time!  You can see the car as well as the petrol pumps in the collage.

We wanted to find somewhere to have our picnic and found a spot overlooking Keevil Airfield, with a beautiful view, so enjoyed watching the gliders in the beautiful sunshine.  We had a lovely time and both agreed that we had been down roads we had never travelled before - and I found some dereliction, so win/win.

“You must respect all the ruins you meet - 
     these stubborn and mysterious visitors 
          of ancient times - 
               because they are still with us 
                    with wisdom-loaded messages 
                         from the distant past!” 
Mehmet Murat ildan