Nichols Service Station, Riverstone

The Nichols Service Station was originally established by William ‘Bill’ Robert Nichols (1903-1958) who was born in London and arrived in Sydney when he was 9 years old. The family settled in Richmond about 1917 where Ern operated the Nichols Bakery. On completing his schooling, Bill was apprenticed to Wally Heap, a Motor Engineer in Richmond and also drove hire cars for him. In the early 1920s, Bill started his own Hire Car Service. Around this time, Bill’s future wife Florence Jennings (1905-1988) moved with her family to Riverstone. Bill became interested in Riverstone’s potential, eventually leasing an old stable building opposite the present day Post Office in Garfield Road. This was the first motor repair shop opened in the town. 

Bill moved to a workshop partly occupied by Harry Williams the Blacksmith, on the corner of Garfield Road & Carlton Streets in about 1927. Sometime before 1935 Bill purchased land in the centre of Riverstone directly opposite what was the Olympia Picture Theatre in Garfield Road. The first purpose built service station opened in 1935, with three hand operated petrol pumps of different brands on the kerbside. 

The 1935 Service Station. Located in Garfield Road, Riverstone. 

Early in 1942 Bill enlisted in the AIF and was a mechanic/fitter, serving his time in the north of Australia. During the war years, his father Ern (1875-1967) affectionately known as “Pop” - looked after the business single-handed. Due to post war shortages new parts were almost impossible to purchase so everything had to be fixed and repaired.  

Bill’s eldest son, Geoff (1930-2012) started work at the garage and started his apprenticeship in 1946, attending Ultimo Tech. Ern (1932-2004) the second eldest, commenced in the workshop in 1947 with a pay of £1 per week. The following year he began his apprenticeship and attended Granville Tech. Bill planned to relocate his business and with foresight he eventually purchased land opposite Oxford Street and the Uniting Church. Also in the mid-1950s he obtained the Chrysler Peugeot agency selling a few cars, as well as second hand cars. 

L - R Bill Nichols, son Geoff, father Ern and son Ernie.

In the late 1950s Bill suffered a setback due to illness, so the relocation plan was set aside. Sadly Bill Nichols passed away in 1958, aged only 54 years of age. As a result of Bill’s death, Ern took over the running of the business. Geoff was working in Parramatta. Bill’s widow Flo was also enticed to become involved in the business looking after the accounts. She also worked on the driveway, selling petrol, as did subsequent family members.

The business grew and in the 1960s it was decided to follow Bill’s plan to relocate. The new Nichols Service Station began construction and was designed in consultation with Mobil and was built by W. McNamara Pty Ltd. From the 1960s petrol for the business was purchased from Mervyn Bassingthwaite of Pitt Town. The business opened in 1962 and boasted a modern driveway, lubitorium and pit with two extra workshop bays. 

In 1962 Geoff returned to the business and modern wheel aligning and balancing was installed. The old Tozer house, adjacent to the garage was purchased and demolished in readiness for a new upgrade. 

During the early 1970s extensions for the next stage of the complex were underway. The petrol at this time was purchased through Mobil Oil Australia from the Rose Hill refineries. In 1974 the new extensions to the Service Station were opened with much fanfare in the town. The old garage was converted into workshop areas plus the two extra bays (hoist & fit) provided 8 bays of a modern service centre. There were three working pits, a hoist and four other bays. The huge driveway canopy and shop front with a store room was quite progressive. Larger fuel tanks were also added to the new site and two islands of pumps made available. The people in Riverstone will remember the petrol strikes of the 1970s/1980s when the queues of cars wound down Garfield Road, into Pitt and then Market Street. 

The 50 year celebrations

Nichols Service Station was awarded the contract for the NRMA depot and road service in Riverstone in 1979. During the 1980s many service stations became self-serve, and began selling other items. In 1985 a decision to sell the business transpired and it was sold the following year. It was the end of an era.

Richmond's Black Horse Inn

During the early days, the colony was teeming with hotels that provided meals, drinks and sometimes accommodation for travellers. Rum, followed later by beer, was the main drink in the colony. Operating hours varied and the hostelries usually had big wooden signs defining the name, hanging on hinges outside. A light burning outside was kept on until a late hour. A lamplighter went around and lit the lamps and kept them burning. Prices ranged from 6d for a glass of rum and 3d for beer. Shouting a drink or round, popular these days, was pretty much unheard of. Entertainment was also scarce. Sometimes dances were held in the tap room, someone would play a fiddle and fights were fairly popular.  

Located in Richmond, the first license was issued 15 Feb 1819 to Paul Randall and recorded in the Colonial Secretary's Papers, 1788-1825 and issued for the ‘Black Horse Prince.’ In later years it became known as the ‘Black Horse.’ A copy of the exact certificate was transcribed in the Windsor & Richmond Gazette in 1919.

Paul Randall was a convict who arrived in NSW in 1791 on board the “Admiral Barrington” Back in England, his brother William was involved in a robbery while his wife Mary was also implicated. Mary arrived on the “Bellona” in 1793. It appears their daughter Margaret (born in 1799) took over the operation of the Black Horse in the late 1820s leading the hotel into its heyday. Margaret had married in 1820 to Dr Henry Seymour, a convict who arrived in 1817. Following the death of her parents, Mary (1832) and Paul (1834) Margaret inherited the inn. Her parents are both buried at St. Peter’s, Richmond. It was during the 1830s that Margaret had constructed, in Windsor Street, a more established two-story building. It is thought that the original single-storey residence remained adjoining the new structure and certainly surviving photographs correspond with this theory. Margaret ran the Black Horse for forty years. 

As Henry and Margaret did not have any children they adopted Sophia Westbrook who was a daughter of James Westbrook and Eliza Phipps. Sophia married in Richmond in 1844, William Sly a convict who had arrived on the “Moffatt” in 1836. She inherited the Black Horse from the Seymour’s and the Sly’s operated it for many years. Sophia died in 1900 and son William became the licensee. Over the next twenty years or so, William Sly Jnr leased the hotel to a number of individuals including Sportsman O’Keefe who was a champion cross country rider. In the late 1920s the license was transferred to a newly established hotel at Kurrajong Heights. In the early 1930s the old inn site on the corner of Windsor and Bosworth Streets, was purchased Mr Grimwood and operated as a garage for many years.  

Black Horse Service Station, Windsor Street, Richmond, ca. 1935
Searle, E. W. (Edward William) 1887-1955
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia nla.pic-vn4655360

Years later, the building was modernised, and more contemporary alterations hid the significant historic hub. It functioned as service station until the 1960s. It was possibly in the 1970s when the service station business ceased and that the false façade constructed. It was divided into commercial premises but the nucleus of the Black Horse remains, hidden.

Much romance is associated with the Black Horse and the newspapers of the 1890s and 1900s are filled with nostalgic recollections. Windsor & Richmond Gazette 16 May 1919.   It was also famous, according to the early newspapers, and many “journeyed from all parts of the colony.”  According to the Australian Town & Country Journal in 1906, the register apparently “recorded the names of many eminent people who have been identified with the wealth and progress of NSW…spent their honeymoon at the famous Black Horse Hotel."

The wooden sign that hung out the front of the hotel showing a running black horse, is now part of the collection of the Hawkesbury Historical Society. From the late 18th century, hotels were required to be licensed with some records surviving and held by State Records.

Other Sources:
Hawkesbury’s Black Horse Inn by Ken Moon (Research Publications, 1988)
Documentation of ‘The Black Horse Inn’ … prepared by Graham Edds & Associates (1994)
Hawkesbury Journey by D. G. Bowd (Library of Australian History, 1986)