During the 1930s motor car ownership spread as the price of a car was reduced by mass production methods. The practise of keeping cars in private former stables and servicing them with the help of converted stable lads changed as ownership spread to the middle classes.
Lacking the space and facilities of their own, the new owners needed the services of purpose built garages and petrol stations. These were often converted from buildings which had been in use for instance as a blacksmith's workshop or an iron-mongers' store. Typically there was a workshop for repairs with petrol pumps in front. After World War II these gradually gave way to purpose built petrol stations normally built with an ancillary workshop and a car-wash.
On the water front in St Mawes there is preserved a good example of a garage of the earlier type, in this case converted from a pilchard store. It owes its survival in the form of a garage to an inhabitant of St Mawes, Brenda Pye, who in 1976 made it into an artists' studio. She subsequently donated it to the St. Mawes Gig Club. It serves as the boathouse for the local gigs and the petrol pumps have been preserved with help from Shell.
By road: On the water-front in St. Mawes, near the harbour jetty.
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