Thursday 14 October 2010

Rye House


A long time ago - in the 1970s - I worked for an Essex garage company during my university vacations. Most of the time I was on the till at the main edge-of-town location, a six-pump (or was it eight?) self-service Mobil garage in Brentwood. Some of the time I was looking after a small old town centre garage with two pumps on the forecourt, and an ancient cash register in a small office. This wasn't self-service: I had to dispense the fuel, offer to check the oil, and take the customer's money. There was one more location I worked at, a garage in Cranham in outer London, a few miles away. Why am I telling you all this? Well ... one of the workshop mechanics used to go stock car racing at Rye House Speedway, and another of the mechanics did drag racing* in a (modified, naturally) E-type Jaguar.


We passed Rye House Junction three times on our recent cruise; at the junction is the Rye House karting track. I think the speedway is next door.


A karting session was in progress as we passed.


For good measure, here's Rye House Power Station, or as much of it as I could see from the Lee.



*the drag racing would have been at Santa Pod

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

When we went past there a couple of years ago local boaters were buying the used tyres to use as fenders, it was quite surreal.
Kath (nb Herbie)

No Direction said...

Was this garage Company run by a Martin Hines ?

Halfie said...

Ray/Jayne, sorry, only just noticed your comment. No, it was Brian Thorogood and Phil Fry.