A prominent garage site on the approach to Skipton is up for sale.

Nicholas Smith’s Garage, on Gargrave Road, went on the market last week.

The site includes a petrol station, showrooms, workshop and a pair of semi-detached houses and is being sold by Dacres Commercial. Billed as a mixed-use site in a prominent position, it has easy access to the A59 and A65.

When it opened in 1919, Nicholas Smith’s was a heavy haulage business and, at weekends, its fleet of charabancs took people on trips to the Dales and to the coast.

In June 1927, its vehicles played a part in what was called the biggest mass migration in peace time, when a million people flocked to see the solar eclipse at a vantage point in Grassington.

In 2004, at another solar eclipse, the garage again ran trips to the Dales – this time in people-carriers, not charabancs.

Nicholas Smith’s became a full-time car dealership in the mid-1950s and won many industry awards. It became a main dealer for Mitsubishi and Daihatsu and also dealt in Renault.