Motoring art: Philip Butler

By Mick Walsh

| 28 Jan 2026

Classic & Sports Car – Motoring art: Philip Butler

Most motoring enthusiasts have favourite garages, be they long-gone landmarks or a welcome fuel stop that saved an anxious driver late at night.

Since the first roadside fuel pump appeared in Britain in around 1913, the growth of motoring has led to garages developing from the Automobile Association’s huts to expansive areas at one-stop supermarket sites.

Manor Road Garage in East Preston, West Sussex, is now apartments

With the arrival of electric-vehicle charging, garages are changing dramatically again to cater for the latest demands.

Many classic UK stations have long since been demolished.

Only 20 of the most iconic have been recognised as historic buildings, so photographer Philip Butler decided to capture these rapidly vanishing sites. His atmospheric images now feature in a new book, 226 Garages and Service Stations.

A disused filling station, c1920s, at Lentran Home Farm in the Scottish Highlands

Inspired by Pop Artist Ed Ruscha’s 1963 publication Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Philip has travelled the UK seeking out interesting garages, and the broad range of buildings and locations makes for a fascinating record.

“I started the project in 2019 when I’d completed a series on old Odeon cinemas,” he says.

“There were several close to my home in Worcestershire, including the Much Marcle Garage, a former WW1 RAF hangar, and the Regal Garage in Upton, a fabulous, mid-1930s purpose-built garage.”

The Black Cat Garage at Bampton, near Tiverton in Devon, was built around 1930

Brought up around classic cars thanks to his father’s passion, Philip’s vehicles have included a Mercedes 280SE and a Daimler V8-250.

“My current summer ride is an MGB, but for longer trips I stick to a modern,” he says.

“My camera is a Canon 6D, a full-frame DLSR that does everything I need.”

Philip Butler’s favourites include St John’s Garage, a converted church in Scotland

Philip finds it tough to choose favourites, but St John’s Garage in Whithorn, Dumfries and Galloway, makes him smile: “It’s a Gothic church built in 1892 and converted into a petrol station in the 1940s.”

The Streamline Moderne era has a special appeal, too, particularly with so few survivors: “The Clock Garage in Woodville, Derbyshire, is a perfect example.

“These pure, smooth forms were very common in the USA in the late 1930s.”

The Clock Garage in Woodville, Derbyshire, was built in the mid-1930s in the Streamline Moderne style

The oldest survivor in the collection is the 1926 filling station on the Upper Richmond Road in East Sheen, south-west London, which is still in operation as a Texaco outlet and has long been a popular stop for the Classic & Sports Car team.

But few early garages match the former Park Langley station in Beckenham, inspired by Chinese temple architecture and designed by Edmund B Clark in 1928.

BP Red Hill, Leicestershire, originally a Mobil site and now Grade II-listed

Philip has discovered some marvellous buildings, from the charming Quick’s Garage in Handcross, West Sussex, which was originally an 18th-century forge, to the former Southern Motors Garage in Edinburgh.

Built in 1931 and recently restored, it is now a Majestic Wine warehouse.

The range of locations and styles are nostalgic and atmospheric.