Information about the interesting history of a transport company in Brigg has been forthcoming following our recent post about the era when heavy traffic still flowed through the town centre - before the A18 was re-routed along Barnard Avenue.
Brigg Blog illustrated our post with a picture (seen above) showing a Smith & Robinson (S & R) tanker turning out of Cary Lane into the Market Place in the early 1970s.
Terry Jaques soon got in touch to say this company had its main depot at Rothwell, Leeds, "but some people will know it by the other names after being taken over by other companies."
These include Hargreaves Transport, Rentokil Initial, Initial Transport Services (ITS) and Interoute Transport Services (ITS).
"When they started with tankers in Brigg in the late 1950s, they use to park in Cary Lane, then moved into a depot in Bridge Street, Brigg, which is now the entrance to the new Aldi Store," Terry explains about the early years.
In the late 1970s the company moved into a purpose-built depot on what is now Atherton Way, with maintenance garage and an internal/external washout station for the tankers.
This depot ran 24/7; the top part is now John Reid Transport, while the entrance to the depot in those days is now used to access Screw Fix.
Terry says the tanker depot closed not long after the Flixborough Disaster (which was in 1974) and it later became a council maintenance depot.
Brigg Blog's original post said: "We think Smith & Robinson, the company which owned the tanker lorry, had a depot on the edge of the Newlands estate - roughly where Atherton Way is today. Can anyone confirm this or supply further information?"
So many thanks to Terry, an operation manager, for not only confirming our rather vague memory but also furnishing details on the topic of tankers in the town.
If you missed our original post, here's a link...
