Former Abbey Garage, Denbigh

Former Abbey Garage, Rhyl Road, Denbigh

This garage building was erected in 1920 by the Ford Motor Company for William Edwards. The date is inscribed in an unusual layout on the front gable. It was named after the ruined remains of the Carmelite friary behind the garage site. The friary was established in the 13th century and dissolved in the 16th.

From the garage William Edwards and his brother Bob operated a bus company called Red Dragon Motor Services. It grew to a fleet of 12 buses and there were enough staff to form a Red Dragon football team. The buses ran mainly in the Denbigh area but also reached as far as Rhyl and Hiraethog. Market days had a special timetable, supplemented on “fair days” with an evening service. The company boasted that its buses met “all trains at Denbigh and Caerwys stations”. Denbigh station was close to the garage (north of the junction of Rhyl Road and Vale Street).

Red Dragon Motor Services was taken over by Crosville Motor Services in 1930, one of many small bus companies which Crosville acquired during its rapid expansion in North Wales. Crosville eventually became part of Sunderland-based Arriva, which still provides bus services between Denbigh and Rhyl.

The motor trade continued at the site for many decades after 1930, with a filling station to the south of the garage building. Dragon Tyre Services traded from the building until c.2008. Since then it has been occupied by Townsend Supplies, which sells fencing, livestock feeders, gravel, septic tanks and other materials for the agricultural and building industries.

Postcode: LL16 3DN    View Location Map