Over the years, Market Lavington and Easterton have had various outlets selling petrol. There have been, and still are all sorts of motor repair businesses. There is still at least one place selling second hand cars. But the place which combined it all – and sold brand new cars – was Edgar Haines’ garage known as The Spring Filling Station and later as Shires Garage. This opened in about 1967 and now, like so many village service stations, it is now long gone.
Today we look at the man, Edgar Haines. And as we often do, we appeal for help. This photo is captioned ‘Edgar Haines’.

One of these men is Edgar Haines who opened and ran a garage and filling station in Market Lavington
But as we can see there are two men in the photo. Both of them look far too smartly attired for dealing with car tyres but we’ll note they are on a carpeted floor so it is probably all quite clean. The question for us is, ‘which man is Edgar Haines?’ A second question is then, ‘who is the other man?’ (Update – Edgar is on the right)
We do not know a lot about Edgar. He was a local man, born in 1930 to parents Wallace and Edith.
Sadly, he died as quite a young man in 1980.
Again, any further information about Edgar would be appreciated.
Tags: 1960s, garage, Market Lavington
March 30, 2014 at 8:25 am |
Edgar Haines is the man on the right of the photo. Edgar once worked for the Wiltshire Police as a mechanic as did I.
March 30, 2014 at 11:03 am |
Thanks John. I felt sure you’d know.
April 8, 2014 at 7:55 pm |
The Spring filling station, garage workshop and car showroom would have been built around ten years later than 1957. Edgar started in Milsoms garage premises at the top of the Muddle (New Street) after leaving Wilts Police workshops,This would be about 1957, I worked for Edgar from 1963 – 1971 and well remember the move down to the Spring.
April 8, 2014 at 9:00 pm |
Thanks, John. I have changed the date in the blog.