Ponteland Then & Now

Ponteland Then & Now: Retracing Our Motoring History

Historic garages, filling stations and motor businesses revisited as Meadowfield Auto Centre explores Ponteland's long relationship with the motor car.

Ponteland's connection with the motor trade goes back much further than many people might realise.

On 24 April 2025, we took a collection of old photographs of Ponteland and went looking for the exact locations where they had originally been taken.

The idea was simple: hold each historic photograph in front of the same location today and see just how much — or in some cases how little — had changed.

What emerged was a fascinating glimpse into the motoring history of Ponteland, Northumberland.

Long before Meadowfield Auto Centre, modern diagnostic equipment, electric vehicles and today's workshops, Ponteland had its own garages, motor engineers, filling stations and vehicle sales businesses serving local motorists.

Some of the buildings remain. Others have changed beyond recognition. Some of the businesses have disappeared almost entirely from living memory.

But the photographs remain.

The garages and motor businesses of old Ponteland

Among the photographs are several businesses and sites connected with Ponteland's motoring past.

One shows The Ponteland Motor Car Co., operating from a traditional garage building in the village.

Another records H. S. Simpson – Motor Engineer, its name prominently displayed above the premises.

Elsewhere, the photographs capture the era of the traditional filling station, including sites carrying familiar historic petroleum brands such as BP and Regent, alongside workshops, vehicle sales and motorists' shops.

Taken individually, they're interesting old photographs.

Seen together, they tell a much bigger story.

They show that the motor trade has been woven into the commercial history of Ponteland for generations.

Returning to the same locations

For our Ponteland Then & Now series, we returned to the locations shown in the original photographs and tried to recreate the viewpoint as closely as possible.

Holding the old image against the modern street scene creates an unusual window into the past.

Road layouts have altered. Petrol pumps have disappeared. Shopfronts have changed. Businesses have come and gone.

Yet in several photographs, parts of the original buildings and surrounding streetscape remain surprisingly recognisable.

It's a reminder that the Ponteland we know today has developed gradually around places generations of residents would have known extremely well.

And, for anyone interested in cars, the photographs reveal just how visible the motor trade once was around the village.

From the Ponteland Motor Car Co. to Meadowfield Auto Centre

There's a personal reason we're particularly interested in preserving this part of Ponteland's history.

Meadowfield Auto Centre is an independent garage and MOT testing station on Meadowfield Industrial Estate in Ponteland today.

We service and repair modern cars, carry out MOT testing and diagnostics and work with vehicle technology that the people standing outside those early garages could scarcely have imagined.

But we're only the latest chapter in a much longer local story.

The names have changed. The workshops have changed. The cars have certainly changed.

The fundamental purpose of a local garage hasn't changed quite as much.

Motorists still need somewhere they trust to maintain and repair the vehicles they rely upon.

Ponteland and the Motor Car – A Pictorial History

These photographs form part of our wider interest in recording the history of cars, garages and motoring in Ponteland.

We've collected much of that history together in Ponteland and the Motor Car – A Pictorial History, which documents the people, businesses, vehicles and places associated with motoring around the village.

The old photographs give us something that written records alone cannot.

They allow us to stand in Ponteland today and quite literally hold its motoring past in front of us.

That's exactly what we did on 24 April 2025.

Ponteland then. Ponteland now. And more than a century of motoring history in between.