Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Fountain Garage (Herrons) Rake lane Wallasey

What a great garage. I worked there in the 60's. The real McCoy, complete with its own petrol pumps, car salesroom, spare parts dept. and a team of mechanics, panel beaters and paint sprayers, each tradesman had his own apprentice.
They don't make 'em like that any more.

That the 1 on the bend?

They certainly don't lol

Opposite the Nag's Head pub.Pulled down a couple of years ago.I think that there are apartments there now.

The Garage was built on the former site of 'Fountains Lodge' where Edward Bennett once resided.

I can't believe how few garages there are now in Wallasey compared to just a few years ago.

Not half!

We used to have all our "Telefusion" vans serviced at "Herrons"
Wasn't it also "Apperleys" garage at one time with Mr. Apperley living in Atherton St.?

Don't ever remember Apperleys but I didn't live in Wallasey at the time. When I was there Teddy Herron owned it, and had done for many years. He also owned the big 'Herrons' garage at the Park Entrance in Birkenhead.

A friend of mine was telling me he completed his panel beating apprenticeship there. One part he wasn't keen about was the rustproofing he had to do, think he called it dinitroll.

it was owned by bob weston and billy jones part owned it until it was sold to be demolished and thank god they don't make em like that as i worked there 11 years ago and had gone down hill was a yugo dealership a long time ago and one of mate's started there when he was 15 before he started his apprentiship that he did at windsors and he is now 37 and he worked in fountain 12 years ago and left just before i started working there and the car sales was run by nigel thomas and he was a complete idiot and we had excutive and sports performance cars but he did'nt want to spend out on fixing them properely may of been ok in the 60's but i've worked in a few garages and they have good reputations but i have no idea how as one of them ripped people off all the time not mentioning any names but they are in birkenhead by art gallery.
good garages are far and few now days as all they are interested in is the money and always ask for the old parts from you car and if they have fitted new suspension ask for them to show you on a ramp before you pay for any work as it's the only way to make sure that the garage have done what you ask as far too many cowboys out there and thats why i left those garages as did'nt agree with the way they were run.
i remember pulling cars up on the lift that used like a chain hoist system and did have a spray booth at the back but was taken out before i started there and had pit's aswell as ramps and the mot's used one of the pit's and had a huge yard at the back that you could get lots of cars in.

Most of which were for sale but iether didn`t run properly or didn`t run at all!

used to do valeting for fountain garage,they did have the odd cool car sittin out back then!

Map from 1952 showing the garage

i remember one of the valeter's starting a senator auto up that had a fault on the inhibitor and it started in reverse and went straight through the fence and we had to drag in back onto the forecourt with one of the rangie's we had in at the time funniest thing i have ever seen a senator balancing on it's sills.lol
wasn't you was it dave g?