UFO-style Fifties winged petrol station is given Grade II listed status

Posted on by Listify Me

By
Daily Mail Reporter


PUBLISHED:

15:34 GMT, 8 May 2012

|

UPDATED:

04:04 GMT, 9 May 2012

Fine architecture is not a phrase normally linked to the British petrol station.

But that may have to change now that two filling stations have been granted Grade II listed status.

This unusual filling station on the A1 at Markham Moor in West Drayton, Nottinghamshire, is one of them, thanks to its curved concrete roof.

Space age: The winged canopy over this petrol station in Markham Moor, Nottinghamshire, is one of the most unusual forecourts in the UK

Eye-catching: The outlandish design was created in the 1960s but has remained as the roof of the A1 station ever since

Designed in the 1950s, it was converted from  a garage 15 years ago and is now a Little Chef restaurant.

The other is an Esso garage on the A6
that has six ‘parasols’ over the pumps.

The 1960s design was once common
but the example in Birstall, Leicestershire.

The iconic Mobil station designed by U.S. architect Eliot Noyes in the 1960s is the last remaining one of its kind in the UK.

Iconic: The space-age style Esso petrol station designed by Eliot Noyes in the 1960s that has been awarded Grade II listed status

Noyes died aged 66 in 1977 having
pioneered the integration of business and design.

Mobil merged with
Exxon in 1999 and in the UK operates under the name Esso.

Heritage minister John Penrose said
both designs represented a time ‘when road travel captured the public’s
imagination and the motorway was full of futuristic glamour’.

Conservation experts say the stations have survived ‘remarkably well’ since being built in the late Sixties.

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
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Just look up Sam Scorer’s designs in Wikipedia. He was both brilliant and innovative with his concepts of spatial geometry. One of Lincoln’s heroes.

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The one at Markham Moor hasn’t been a petrol station for ten years or more. You can even tell it’s not a petrol station by looking at the picture. Who writes this stuff?

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The one at markham moor aint a petrol station

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You can see this same design of roof on the old “Lincolnshire Motor Co” showroom by the Brayford in Lincoln. I think it is now a library. I remember it caused a sensation when it opened in 1959. on one corner is a separate circular glass showroom this featured a turntable where the car on show (in this case a Mk1 Ford Capri) went round round. Very futuristic for its day!. This building was designed by Sam Scorer a well known Lincoln architect, its been a listed building for years, and yes Valdez, Rochdale. it is called a “Hyperbolicperabaloid”design.

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The Markham Moor design is beautiful, functional and simple, so merits the grading as a listed building worth keeping.

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I love the Esso one it is like something from a sci-fi film.

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Good that these petrol stations have survived this long. Now if only their original prices could have done the same…

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But there are some sad people in the world.
– George, London, 08/5/2012 18:58 ————————- yes, you are.

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i have always wondered how disgusting modern petrol stations can just keep updating themselves without planning permission in areas that need you to get approval just for painting the outside of your house a different colour, when you look back to some of the lovely older stations we had in the past it seems like a real loss, they are after all only pumps and shops, they don’t have to be the horrible little mini marts we have everywhere now.

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illuminati building

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