Q8, Taunton Trailer and Towing Centre, Three Bridges Garage, Bradford-on-Tone, Taunton, Somerset, c.1988

Now Total Triumph, motorbike dealers and home of the Total Snacks burger van goo.gl/maps/DDnz8mGtauyM4Q1f7 Three Bridges Garage, almost opposite the entrance to Sheppy's Cider Farm (just visible in the photo), was one of a huge number of petrol stations on the A38 from Bristol to Exeter, most of which, with the coming of the M5, slowly died. In 1957 the Somerset County Herald reported that there were already 51 petrol stations in the 38 miles of A38 between Taunton and Bristol, at a moment when Regent were refused permission to open another near Highbridge.

Here, in a photo I bought off eBay a few years ago, we see an interesting moment—Three Bridges Garage freshly painted in the new Q8 branding, but before (presumably) planning permission had been granted for the pole sign; a Q8 flag has thus been used as a temporary measure. From the design of price board, I am guessing this was Pace before Q8 although it could potentially have been Ultramar; there were both along this stretch of road within my memory (Pace in Cullompton and Monkton Heathfield; Ultramar at Pawlett and Rooksbridge). I can't see any other clues. Looking at my childhood car journey notes, this remained selling Q8 until about 1995–6 when petrol sales ended, and I don't recall anything unusual about the pole sign, so they must have got the permission sorted out!

The pumps are an interesting design, also seen in Chris Barker's photo of a Fina garage near Ross-on-Wye — they look like the body of a Veeder-Root / Dunclare design, with a more modern electronic display added. The rounded corners on the canopy and the little kiosk make for quite a characterful scene, along with two white A-reg Escorts, a Fiat Strada, Nissan Stanza, and a Sierra among others.

Some rights reserved

Taken in: UK / England / South Western (show map)

Taken on: January 1, 1988

Tags:

Kuwait Petroleum (Great Britain)

KPGB

petrol

petrol station

petrol pump

Dunclare

Veeder-Root

Ford Escort

Nissan Stanza

Fiat Strada

Fiat Ritmo

A38 « less

Sets appears in: • Twenty-Six Hundred Petrol Stations

Groups appears in: • Period (pre 2000) British petrol station pictures • Motoring

Stats: 2,464 views / 2 comments

go back

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder