Turpin’s Yard in 1964, B.MILL.K64 1660, Courtesy of the Cambridgeshire Collection

309 – 317 Mill Road

History of 309 - 311 Mill Road

1925

John Turpin, timber merchant [see 307 Mill Road]

Turpin and sons started as bushel and peck merchants but then turned to cricket bats. then they turned to timber and it was where local boys used to go and collect sawdust for their pet rabbits.

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1962

(309 – 311) J I Turpin, ironmonger

(313) Turpin Bros, timber merchants

(313) Reginald James Marsh

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In 1966 Frank ‘Dutch’ Holland set up a second petrol station at 315-7 Mill Road, Turpin’s Yard. Frank was unable to get support from Texaco for a self service petrol station; the company believed that self service would never take off in the UK. (see ‘D-Day Plus One, Dr Adam Wilkins and Frank Holland, 2007)

In order to promote the new site he rented a Triumph Tiger for four days and paid the well known actress Liz Fraser to come to the opening ceremony. The self service concept was a big success; it was only the second such station in the country. The business here was also dealership for Rootes cars but in 1974 the firm switched to Datsun. Datsun were later taken over by Nissan.

 

 

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7 September 1984

An article remembered John Ingersol Turpin, known locally as “The Colonel”, one of the brothers who ran the Mill Road timber yard. Established in 1929, the business originally imported timber from Sweden, Russia and Canada. Wartime shortages forced a change of direction and the family developed a substantial second-hand furniture business, becoming well known throughout Cambridge.