The fascinating 1930s petrol pumps that you can still see in the Yorkshire Dales

They're the intriguing relics of a lost age of motoring sitting atop a rolling dale.
The four pumps at Langthwaite (photo: Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority)The four pumps at Langthwaite (photo: Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority)
The four pumps at Langthwaite (photo: Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority)

Four 1930s petrol pumps still survive in Langthwaite, where they have been lovingly preserved by a private owner and recently featured in a blog post written by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority.

They are some of the last survivors of the early days of British motoring, before increasing traffic necessated the creation of forecourts and manned stations.

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The first roadside pump in Britain was installed at a garage in Shrewsbury during World War One. Four years later, there were 7,000.

The Langthwaite pumps are near Arkle Town, in the heart of the Dales. Now disused, they sit, along with a Castrol oil dispenser, mounted on stone plinths. The underground storage tank that once supplied them has now been filled in

They were manufactured by Wayne Fuelling Systems, who achieved success in the 1920s with their campaign to ensure pumps were aesthetically pleasing and did not blight the natural environment. In 1936, they even ran a competition to find the world's most beautiful pump.

The fuel in the Langthwaite pumps was supplied by the National Benzole Company, a rival of BP, Shell and Anglo-American. Their Benzole product was made from British coal shale, so was marketed as a nationalistic and patriotic choice in the inter-war years, when fuel was imported from Bolshevik Russia. AA even sold it exclusively at their filling stations.

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National also earned plaudits for refraining from using visually intrusive signage and adverts, but they were later forced to end their reliance on British coal during periods of industrial unrest. They instead created a new fuel made with petrol from BP, and by the 1960s there was no longer any Benzole in it. When Shell-Mex and BP merged, they purchased National and the brand became defunct in the 1980s.

The Langthwaite pumps were manufactured between 1937 and 1946, but are more likely to date from the earlier part of that time period. They were electric, and had displays to tell the driver how much fuel they had used. They have metered clock face dials and a hand pump fitted onto the side in case the power supply failed - this was common in rural areas.

The 'gallows' arm was introduced in the 1930s to allow a hose to reach over the car's roof.

Although National Benzole's pumps were usually gold and yellow, the Langthwaite ones are painted green to blend in with the nearby landscape.

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By World War Two, this type of roadside pump had become less common, as roads became busier and forecourts off the highway were seen as a safer arrangement.

Many pumps like the ones at Langthwaite were scrapped, and it is thanks to the interest of their owner that they have survived.

This information first appeared on the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority blog.