Terowie Lubritorium, South Australia

Former lubritorium in Terowie South Australia

Terowie is an historic town in the mid-north of South Australia, between Burra and Peterborough. We paid a short visit to the town recently after visiting family in Peterborough. One of the old buildings which caught my attention is shown in the photo above.

I can’t find any reference to who C.B. Nourse was, but in the heyday of the town when it was a thriving service centre for the surrounding rural district, this business must have also done very well.

Times change and the town is now a quiet backwater, with very few businesses still open. Many old buildings have been abandoned and are deteriorating and the population has dwindled.

The wording on the fascia board is of interest to me. A “lubritorium” is obviously an establishment where motor vehicles are lubricated, maintained and repaired. While the term is in common use in the United States it is less so these days in Australia, though I seem to remember when growing up in the 1950s that it was far more widespread in usage here in Australia too. These days we tend to use “service centre” or even “garage” instead.