Moon’s Garage

The following are some miscellaneous notes about Moon’s Garage in Leigh which ran from the 1930s until the 1960s when it changed hands.

From this website:

From Keith Davidson memories (1957-1963):

Moon’s Garage in Penshurst Road was where Fairlawns is now.  George Bowyer was a first class motor engineer there, doing the servicing etc.  Rev. Bounds and I used that garage, the Rev Bounds even coming back to use it for servicing after he had retired.

From:  Peter King, Leigh Blacksmith 1936-2014

When the Bullinghams sold the Forge in 1972, Peter started his own blacksmithing business in an old Nissen hut at the back of Moon’s Garage which in due course became Chequers Garage.  Mike Peters then sold Chequers Garage to Alan Rance who was starting Fairlawn Garden Mowers.

 

Notes from “We Had Everything . . . “ by Chris Rowley

The following are the few extracts mentioning Moon’s Garage from the above book.

Memories of Harry and Jack Lucas:  “In the late 1930s Mr Whitehead, the butcher, built a garage next door to the Donkey Field for his brother.  It was taken over by Mr Moon and it was always called Moon’s Garage from then until the 1960s.  During the war Mr Moon expanded and built a corrugated iron extension on the back with an engineering workshop which was said to be making bits for Spitfires.  He had about six men who worked on the lathes and things.  Maurice Martin in Garden Cottages was there”

Memories of Maurice Martin:  Maurice had hoped to go to Technical School but because of the war and places being cut back he couldn’t, “So at 14 I went to Moon’s Garage – where Fairlawns mowers is now.  Mr Moon had worked for Mr Whitehead who built the garage to start with and, when Mr Whitehead wasn’t doing too well, Mr Moon bought it off him.  Mr Moon had worked in the Monotype factory in Redhill or Horley or somewhere, so he was very conversant with machinery.

“At the beginning of the war we had this lovely old Armstrong Sidley breakdown lorry, with a crane on the back and a brass radiator.  But they commandeered that.  Took off the crane.

“We used to put some of the old cars that were no good in the Donkey Field.  It was a great big hole.  All our old metal went in there.  It must have been a clay pit or something once, probably for making bricks.

“From 1941, Mr Moon started making parts for the war effort.  All the machinery was driven by belts – it was like they’ve got in the British Museum.  He started with four or five people and eventually it was up to nine or ten.  Originally there was me and Don Grayland who was the foreman – he’d been here since 1938 – and two others who were in the Territorials but they joined up at the start of the war.  We ended up with a good lot.  There was Joan Smith and Vi Chandler – who lives in Tonbridge; the two Hollands sisters from Cinder Hill; Nora Mills – you remember Mrs Mills from Greenview Avenue who ran the Sunday School; Jean Dadswell and Marion Gooch who married a Canadian air force pilot; Elsie Winson whose father kept the old Post Office; Sidney Clayton – he came from Penshurst but I still see him; Maurice Wells whose father was the main preacher at the Chapel; Mrs Brunger but she came from Hildenborough; and Mrs Ronalds was in charge of the money.  She was quite a stickler. And, of course, there was Barbara Faircloth, whom I married later.

 

Joyce Field (June 2023)