It was lovely to read a letter in last week’s paper about the Dome roundabout with a different possibility for the roundabout’s name.

It got me thinking further as I remember the petrol station where the flats are now and recall some kind of dome-like canopy too, so it seemed a really good alternative – sadly we don’t have any images of this structure in the collection. However, in the past few days, I’ve suddenly come across some exciting new information.

Read more: Was the Dome roundabout named after a petrol station?

It seems that it may not be a canopy that lends its name to the roundabout but an earlier business here in the early 1930s. We’ve always known that there was a petrol station here, but not that around 1933, it was named the Dome Service Station. I wonder if this is the true origins of the name? It’s difficult to tell which came first, the petrol station or the gas holder? Perhaps another little nugget of information will turn up soon that will explain it all.

Christine Orchard,

Volunteer Archivist, Watford Museum