No 30 North Street

NOW THE JUBILEE GARAGE PUBLIC HOUSE

Many of our old buildings has been converted for new uses such as shops and food and drink outlets, among them No 30 North Street, one of the many solid 19th century properties to be found in the town centre.

The building has had a chequered history and during the 19th century it was used by Arnold Pick and Co, a wholesale and retail ironmongers and implement agents, with an adjoining blacksmith's forge underneath the arch.

The company was operating from this building in 1885 but when the owner, Arnold Pick, died, the business was taken over in April 1891 by Mr Ernest Foley who moved to the town with his brother George from Driffield in Yorkshire. He expanded trade to cater for the increasing popularity of the motor car and when he died in 1926, the premises were acquired by T A Stocks, motor agent, a firm established six years before with branches at Lincoln and Boston, who called their garage the Motor House. At this time, the main road between Peterborough and Lincoln (now the A15) ran past the front and as motorised traffic was on the increase, petrol was supplied from a pump outside the building with an arm that was swung out over the road to supply fuel to passing motorists.

In 1937, the building was purchased by Edward Pearce, the jeweller, who ran the shop next door at No 32, and opened as a motor showroom and workshops run by his son, William Ronald Pearce, who had already begun a garage and petrol business in Meadowgate, known as the Jubilee Garage. A filling station was also opened in Abbey Road.

The motor business continued until after the Second World War when it was closed and the business concentrated on the Abbey Road site while the building was acquired by Davies, the ironmongers, and in more recent years by Rowland's, the Sewing Centre, which opened in 1977, although the old forge under the arch has also been a herbal dispensary, a cut price electrical retailers, a doll's house centre called Miniatures and more recently a shop dealing in pottery and porcelain.

In 2005, the premises were acquired by Mick Thurlby, a businessman who is doing much to rejuvenate the town centre, notably by the purchase and conversion of Smiths the Grocers opposite into a popular drinking place, and he redesigned No 30 as a cafe-style wine bar, appropriately called The Jubilee, which opened in August 2006. It is not a listed building as many believed but it is within the conservation area and as its imposing period façade enhances the street scene at the point, it was reassuring to know that it has been preserved. “We have kept as many original features as possible to reflect the history of the building”, said Mr Thurlby.

In the spring of 2012, the public house was closed for several weeks for refitting and opened in April under the new name of the Jubilee Garage, an acknowledgment of its former use. The interior has been completely redesigned with an automobile theme throughout and containing an impressive array of veteran and vintage motor memorabilia including a 1972 Volkswagon camper van, old Castrol, Esso and Shell BP oil signs, hub caps, a 1950s petrol pump and archive photographs of the BRM. "We have restored the building's garage characteristics and it has become a really different venue", explained operations manager Ross Dykes. "The pub now has it own identity."

Mick Thurlby's other scheme next door is also underway, demolishing Number 32 to make way for two new shops and five flats and the two developments are costing around £1 million between them, an investment that will bring a much needed improvement to an area of North Street that has been blighted for more than a decade.

REVISED APRIL 2012

See also     The Jubilee Garage     Arnold Pick     No 32 North Street