Garage was a significant landmark

CHRIS ROBINSON WONDERS WHAT MADE A POPULAR GARAGE CLOSE ITS DOORS

- CHRIS ROBINSON

THIS splendid image of Grant's Garage at Roborough was supplied by a grandson of Arthur George Grant who, it would appear, T set up Grant's Garage with his brother Albert not long after the end of the Great War.

Arthur had served in the Territorials during the First World War, and came out a captain in 1918; Albert meanwhile was listed as a farmer before the war. Curiously enough, the two young men were both married at the erstwhile St Augustine's Church in Alexandra Road, in the summer of 1923: Arthur in June, to Rose Briggs, and Albert in July to Agnes Rowe.

Just what had prompted their entry, two years earlier, into the motoring world is unclear but they began advertising their business in the local press at the end of 1921 and many years later (in 1938) Grant's would claim to be the oldest established firm of motor engineers in the district.