Today I'm looking at an old council highway depot. It sounds dull, and it looks duller. I can completely understand why some people might overlook it entirely. But this place is actually pretty awesome, and it's become quite popular with the urbex crowd. I don't often do urbex-herd stuff, but this place was certainly worth making an exception.
Let's slip inside.
Check it out!
This reception area is beautiful. The decay here is entirely natural, and it looks very post-apocalyptic.
Having closed in 2011, it's been empty for almost as long as I've been doing urbex, and nature has spent that time taking back the land that humans once appropriated. And somehow it's also free of vandalism. What an absolute treat!
Is it any wonder that it's popular with the urbex herd?
This shot from this exact angle has been taken by a million urbexers before me, and will be taken by a million more, so pardon me for being repetitive. I like to think I make up for it in other aspects.
The thing about urbexers and the places that are popular with them is that even when I'm the millionth person to come here, I'm still probably only the fifth one who wears deodorant.
Check out these offices? Isn't this amazing? I feel like if I licked the walls I'd start hallucinating.
Here's a little waiting area.
This chair has a garden growing on it.
This depot carried out maintenance for the local council, and seems to have done so for nearly a hundred years. According to other urbex posts, it's earliest historic mention is in 1937. I found a few smidges of information that allude to earlier activity, but nothing too dramatic. I've found nothing on it from the 1920s or earlier.
On the surface, research looks pretty bleak. You'd probably expect there to not be much to say about a council highway depot. But as I always say, history is about the people involved. To get the full story of a location, look to the people that it mattered to. Everywhere mattered to someone once, and everyone has a story.
There was a lorry driver employed here named William Povey. He had fought in the first world war and had been discharged after an injury. In 1919, his neighbour Hilda Maddocks offered him a job as a shop assistant and bus driver at her garage.
And I hate to speak ill of the (probably) dead, but she was a bit of a cunt.
In 1924, William Povey left her employment and got work as a truck driver for the council, and ended up employed here at this depot in the 1930s. His new boss was a chap called Mr Pardoe.
For a full decade Mr Pardoe was swamped with anonymous complaint letters specifically about William Povey, each one claiming to be from a concerned citizen. After questioning Povey about it, Mr Pardoe chucked the lot in the bin, and that was that. I don't know the contents of these letters, just that there was a ridiculous number of them.
But in 1936 Mr Pardoe retired and was replaced by a chap called Cyril Quayle, and he was a little more determined to do something about it. The letters continued. One in 1939 anonymously signed "a workman's wife" accused Povey of stealing two houses worth of firewood from the depot every night, while another from 1942 anonymously signed "Ratepayer" accused Povey of stealing petrol from the depot.
Cyril Quayle was able to match the handwriting to the rent book where Hilda Maddocks recorded her rent payments. Povey sued her for defamation in 1943.
And that's great. Imagine harassing and defaming someone for twenty years when they're just living their life. Some people seriously need a hobby. Well done to his bosses for defending him, too. Not everyone would be that lucky. This guys life could very easily have been ruined.
Check out this beautiful pile of relics. Do computers even have floppy disk drives anymore?
There's a very managerial-looking desk in the corner, and the discolouration on the wall would indicate that a whiteboard or noticeboard had once been mounted there. Perhaps this is the room where Cyril Quayle worked all those years ago.
The hallway is gloriously decayed, with all this peeling paint, and absolutely no graffiti.
I wonder if this water dispenser would still work. After a clean, of course.
It's all very liminal and creepy, and I love it.
Still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs
But why is there a photocopier in here?
Beyond the offices was the old maintenance workshop. It's pretty spacious.
Check out these vintage drawers.
Some stagnant water for anyone who fancies polio.
And look! An abandoned bucket of pothole filler!
If only we could fill potholes with the jokes we could make about the council abandoning their pothole filler. I'm sure there's enough of them.
Check out this old relic. Evidently the workers listened to some tunes while they worked.
Just off from the workshop is this little office, with a window overlooking everything. Clearly someone has had a rummage, and bizarrely stolen the computer keyboard. But with the old box monitor still here, it still gives me that early 2000s time capsule vibe.
There's a board here for hanging keys.
This is apparently the "quarantine area."
Allegedly a council depot quarantine area is for temporarily holding and disposing of illegally dumped environmental hazards, biomedical waste thingies, faulty goods, or things that have been contaminated. If someone shat themselves and hurled their pooey knickers from the car window, those knickers would end up here.
Or some fetishists would take them home.
But realistically I expect this area was largely just used for storing fly-tipped fridges or something.
This door leads to the canteen, as you can probably see.
Allegedly this was an electrical test shop before it became a canteen. Presumably it once had a few more tables and chairs for the staff. I guess the council decided that they could be repurposed. The mugs on the side and the kettle are quite sad to see, adding a dash of humanity to this empty building. In 2011 some people drank from those mugs, put them on the side, and then never picked them up again.
There's a map on the wall that I totally failed to photograph adequately.
And here we have the store room, with a cute little office at the back.
The far wall has these pretty nifty electrical boxes.
The office is pretty cool. There's loads of stuff left behind.
The documentation is dated 1991. That's awesome.
But if that wasn't awesome enough, the entries in this notebook are dated 1989.
The most modern item is this copy of Take a Break Magazine from 2007.
I fucking love Take a Break Magazine, not that I've ever actually read it. I also love its sister title "That's Life" for exactly the same reason. I just love the juxtaposition of the cover headlines advertising the most horrific of stories beneath a friendly-looking logo that gives the impression of a relaxing read. There's nothing quite like seeing a magazine cover say something like "I was sodomised with a cheese grater by my transvestite uncle and all his mates when I was two" underneath the words "That's Life" in big friendly font. How can I not find that hilarious?
After I read about William Povey's defamation case, I wondered what additional history could be squeezed out of the archives, and turned my attention to obituaries and job adverts.
In 1966 one of the labourers here, a war veteran named Eric Newport, died in a puzzling road accident. Allegedly he had been cycling when a car went to overtake him. For seemingly no reason, Eric turned his bike into the path of the car, and was fatally injured, leaving everyone wondering why he did it.
I managed to find a photo of him.
(Photo not mine, obviously)
A few years earlier, in 1960, a foreman by the name of George Gregory passed away at the age of 73. He had originally been a wheelwright since passing an apprenticeship in 1914, but when he realised that the trade was in decline he made the sad but smart decision to give it up and come work here.
His funeral was attended by a number of his workmates, including Cyril Quayle and a chap called Alfred Pridding.
Alfred Pridding originally trained as a blacksmith before the war, and had ended up being a tank mechanic in the military. In fact he'd worked on some of the tanks involved in the D-Day invasion to liberate France. After the war, Pridding came to work here, where he met his wife Vera. He retired in 1977 and passed away in 1999.
As for job vacancies, there are enough in old newspapers to get a rough idea of what working here would be like, and get a depressing taste of inflation.
In 1989, a managerial job was advertised offering a salary of £9,474-£10,407. A mechanic job in 1990 offered £160.26 per week! All rather farcical by today's standards.
But if that's not shocking enough, a store clerk job from 1969 advertised a whopping £17 a week, with travel expenses covered! And just think, that's the generation that could afford a house.
The workshop has a few drowned traffic cones left behind.
This contraption is a vehicle brake tester, used for an MOT and possibly worth a fair bit. I'm quite surprised it's still here.
There were a few other random stories over the decades. The depot has been subject to at least two robberies. In 1981 someone stole the batteries of two vehicles, allegedly around the value of £1000. The papers said that this happened between the 8th and 9th of January.
Ah yes, that secret day between the 8th and the 9th. No wonder they got away with it. Nobody ever expects to be robbed on that day.
In 1986 thieves struck again, this time stealing wheels from a trailer, allegedly worth £320. I wonder if it was the same people.
Then in 1989 one of the employees, named Peter Stockton, won an award for safe driving. I didn't know that was a thing but I do have a picture of him
(Thats him on the right. Photo not mine, obviously)
The most amusing scandal came on Boxing Day in 1969 when a load of concerned citizens ended up writing to the paper because the council hadn't done anything to clear the snowfall that winter. The locals phoned this depot and had no answer. But one guy managed to get the personal number of one of the managers and was outraged when the manager told him that this site was unmanned on Boxing Day. Oh no!
Doesn't that make you feel nostalgic? Snow at Christmas time. Someday kids will be looking at snowmen on Christmas decorations and wondering what the hell that's about.
We're about done here. Let's head outside.
There's one last area to check out right next to the entrance...
There's a few smaller offices dotted about.
I think this area may have been where the council produced road signs, given that there's an old road safety sign propped up against the wall over there. Back in its day, this depot produced most of the road signs in the surrounding area, which is definitely something I'll be thinking about next time I'm around. I don't think I've ever looked at road signs and thought about where they were made.
The depot was under the councils direct labour organisation, but in 1997 it was taken over by a company called Prismo, who were "road maintenance specialists" as part of a council decision to externalise the department after a £1.5 million loss the previous year.
Looking around, I guess it didn't work out well for them.
Moving back outside, there's a pretty cool retro petrol pump.
But that's about it.
Alas, while this council depot is a wonderful example of what can happen when an abandoned place is just left to nature without any vandalism, its days are numbered. The powers-that-be have expressed an interest in building (surprise!) houses on the land, as well as a village hall. But this was supposed to commence in 2015 and so far nothing has happened. Why are developers building on the remains of listed buildings after the mysterious fire fairies get in, when this land is sat here waiting for them?
I guess if you do want to see this place, now's the time.
But that's all I've got. I'm quite happy to have found as much history as I did. When it comes to urbex and history, a council depot hardly sounds ground-breaking. But the history of a place can be found in the people it mattered to, and everywhere mattered to someone once. Whether it was as the direction that Hilda Maddocks focused her petty rage, or the place where a former soldier met his wife, this place still mattered to people. I get asked all the time how I manage to research more than the average urbexer. It's because I research the people.
Or it's because the average urbexer is profoundly lazy. One of those.
Anyway, my next blog will be back in Poland, focusing on some grim history, so as mundane as a council highway depot is, it served as a much needed break.
If you like my blogs and want to see more of it, then try your luck with the algorithmic hellscapes that are Facebook and Instagram, where my reach is pitiful. Alternatively I am on Vero, Cara and Bluesky. But really, I miss the days of the old internet. I miss when people just had their personal websites, and it wasn't just corporate bollocks where my reach was dependent on the whim of a bunch of crusty paedophiles. Perhaps the best way to stay up to date is to periodically google the blog, or favourite it on your desktop. There's a thought.
Anyway, thanks for reading!
