Belmont Filling Station

Austin (Junior) and Gerard Melia’s first step into the business world was the purchase of Belmont Filling Station, situated on the edge of Belmont Village on the outskirts of Northern Bolton. In the 1950s the road through Belmont was a main arterial route out of the town into Preston and other locations in North, West and East Lancashire. It would have been choice for holiday traffic to resorts on the Lancashire coast, particularly Blackpool, Lytham, Morecambe and Fleetwood. A petrol filling station should therefore have been a good proposition. There followed a succession of other purchases in Bolton and Farnworth during the later 1950s.     
 

Gerard Melia outside Belmont Filling Station, about 1953.

Family photo