Vine Street Bus Station Scarborough

Westwood and Northway bus stations in Scarborough have been mentioned, but East Yorkshire MS & West Yorkshire RCC had an earlier depot/bus station, this was in Vine Street, off Victoria Road. It was leased from EH Robinson who was a prominent operator in Scarborough trading as Scarborough & District, White Coach Tours & Royal Blue Coaches at various time until finally being taken over by United. Vine Street was leased by WYRCC & EYMS from 1/29 until 4/35 when the lease ran out and neither operator took it up, WYRCC eventually moved to Northway with EYMS moving with them.
Vine Street had a rear entrance and a narrow exit on to Vine Street, it may have become to small for EYMS & WYRCC use and the narrow exit on to a small street would not have helped also it was not near the town centre. The depot is still standing and over the years has had many owners at the present it is owned by auctioneers. Most of the superb EYMS interior photos taken by Geoffery Atkins were taken in Vine Street.

Mike Davies
05/2012

Vine Street showing the narrow exit (photographer unknown)

An interior view of Vine Street this is one of G Atkins photos

A recent view of Vine Street

15/08/12 - 11:52

Going back to the 1920's both East and West Yorkshire originally jointly leased the premises of Robinsons which was located in Vine Street off Victoria Road with an entrance in Trafalgar Street West and exit only through Vine Street. Robinsons were a large local transport operator (as well us a coal merchant, haulage contractor and Lancia Agent) from the mid nineteenth century and were the original local bus company initially running a large fleet of Plaxton bodied Lancia charabancs and who owned the Scarborough and District fleet name which they sold on to United Auto Services. They also had a head office at the Station and another bus depot in Aberdeen Walk near the post office. EYMS and West Yorkshire then moved to Northway with United running out of a bus station in Somerset Terrace (now a car park) in addition to a depot which is now owned by the Palm Court hotel in Vernon Road. Eventually they all ended up at Westway which is of course now a Tesco's. The only link now being the EYMS depot opposite Tesco's. Scarborough unfortunately now has no centralised bus depot in the town and this fact makes the local services very complicated especially for visitors as they now have no clue as to where the individual services run from.

Chris Tinker

15/08/12 - 14:52

My only extended stay in Scarborough was on a week's school field course in 1966. At that time, even though the bus stations at Northway, Westwood and Valley Bridge were all in use, I seem to remember that all of the local services (United) started and terminated at the old Court House in Castle Road.

Stephen Ford

16/08/12 - 07:37

What an excellent posting. The first coach on the left is Yorkshire Woollen 383 which was quite a rarity being an AEC in a stronghold Leyland fleet. It was taken over when the company took over E.Box and Sons Dewsbury in 1936. The bodybuilder was unknown. HD 5658 was withdrawn in 1949 and was sold for scrap but was purchased by A. Rowe of Cudworth Barnsley and later acquired a Lee C32C body and was scrapped by its 4th owner Sergent of Wrinehill.

Philip Carlton

18/05/17 - 12:06

Slight correction to my piece regarding Robinsons Motors. I have recently identified that the coal merchants business was actually run by another family coincidentally also called Robinson’s who came from Halifax and who advertised the coal business on Robinsons buses but the families were not connected as the bus company family of John and Edgar Robinson originated from Brandesburton. Sorry for any confusion.

Chris Tinker

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