Prior to the opening of the Ribble Bus Station in 1937 there had had been repeated calls for a purpose built centre for buses. As early as 1928 the Ormskirk Advertiser carried letters pointing out the terrible congestion in the space opposite the Institute and several locations were suggested, including the corner of Knowsley Road and Moor Street, the site which was eventually chosen. This photograph, probably dating to the 1920s, shows a bus waiting by the side of the Queen's Head in Moorgate.
Ormskirk Bus Station
Built in 1937 for the Ribble Bus Company by local Building Company Thomas Riding of Chapel Street, the much needed Ormskirk Bus Station took over the vacant plot at the corner of Knowsley Road and the Eastern end of Moor Street, where the Wood Yard and large home of the Peet family had been for nearly a century. At one time mid 1800s George Peet had employed a dozen joiners and apprentices at his thriving wood yard, which covered the whole length of what in the 1870s became Knowsley Road.
Two years after the new Bus Station had been completed in 1937, demands for a shelter from the elements by travellers were met when the Ormskirk Urban District Council Town Planning Committee approved plans for building a shelter. Quite why the Town Planning had approved the original 1937 build and not insisted on a shelter is puzzling. Prior to the new Bus Station, the main stop in the town was outside the Institute and travellers relied on the shelter at the front of said Institute to avoid the rain.
In the 1940s and 1950s buses were usually arriving at the station already full yet passengers were queueing (on the side of the apron or against the garage doors) to get on. People would jump on the bus at the Church House at the top of Church Street and pay a penny fare which meant they were already seated by the time the bus got to the station. Some travellers on Market days would wait two hours for a bus to have space. Hard to imagine Church Street with buses going up and down all day now even though many of us travelled on them regularly.
The building in 2025
