Alcombe, the Village 1912

Alcombe School

This is a very exciting discovery for me because it is one of the oldest photographs I have seen of a part of old Alcombe that I can recognise, even at my great distance from the UK.
My Great-Grandfather George Mildon had a school at Alcombe from the year of his marriage to Alice Frankpitt in 1874. He evidently bought the school from a Francis Ransome who had lived there with his wife Ann, their 4 children, his Assistant Thomas Kemm, 2 servants and a number of boarding pupils.
After 20 years teaching in Alcombe, in 1894 George Mildon sold the school, and with their 6 children, they emigrated to New Zealand.
The following details are as we can reconstruct from recent research, which has placed the school down the modern Manor Road off to the photographers right, which was once an extension of Combeland Road seen here to the photographers front. The school master's family and the boarders' accommodation probably occupied the two residential buildings to the right of the modern Britannia Inn and the school itself and school yard was accessed through a tunnel under the second of those houses. The building still exists.
George Mildon and his family occasionally attended St George's Church at Dunster and his eldest daughter Alice played the organ at the church. With his Lay Licence George could also preach at the Chapel of Ease in Alcombe located in The Grove. There is a window in St George's at Dunster that commemorates Walter Ludlow, who with his wife Ellen lived at Rosebank Villa in Alcombe on Manor Road. They were great friends and corresponded for many years after the Mildons left for New Zealand. George Mildon taught both of their sons at his school.
The contrast of the pretty villages of Alcombe and Dunster compared with the swampy unstumped farmland they emigrated to in New Zealand was extreme and the physical work in getting the farm productive was immense. George Mildon died in 1904, however the land in New Zealand was worked for 3 more generations before the farmland was sold in 1988, although this writer still occupies the house originally bought. Alcombe and Dunster are still remembered as important places in our history although none of the family that emigrated are with us now, and seeing photographs such as this help us to envision the village as it was nearer the time when they lived there.
Although George Mildon passed his school on to another teacher, by 1901 it appears it was no longer functioning, the address becoming known as the Old School House, and it appears to have become workers tenements.  
A full record of all the pupils that attended Alcombe School and a quantity of other material that relates to their time there can be found at minehead-online.co.uk
The writer would welcome any information that would add to the above and may be contacted by email by clicking my name below or writing to me at Richard Mildon, 1069 Kairanga-Bunnythorpe Road, Palmerston North 4475, New Zealand.

Church Town

In 1960 my home was just out of shot: next door to the house that is partly visible on the far right of the picture. I lived at number 18 Church Street, Church Street being the road that is accessed by turning right in the middle distance of the photo, at the bottom of Church Steps. The tree that can be seen towering above our neighbour’s house was a magnificent walnut tree, which is – sadly - no more. The cottage in the foreground (second from left) was our “corner" shop. It was my Saturday afternoon habit around that time to call in at the shop for a bar of chocolate, and also to post letters in the box that was set into the wall outside the shop. More often than not the chocolate I bought was either Cadbury’s Turkish Delight (the bars were rather smaller than they are today!) or mint flavoured Aero, then a new innovation. And the “letters” always included competition entries. I was a competition geek (not that the term geek was common then!) and entered many of the contests in magazines such as Girls Crystal, School Friend and Girl. For my efforts, which were sent on the back of a postcard, I sometimes even won !

wbardry@hotmail.com

P Aden :

I was at Butlins as well. (1962 - 1964)

I remember the big dipper thing; we used to call it The Mouse. I often went up on it.

I wonder what the camp is like now. Horrible dump, blasting out rap music probably.

My time at the camp.

I was born in Minehead, and have also lived in Dunster, Williton, Timberscombe and Rodhuish, and attended all the schools. I worked in Butlins Holiday Camp at Minehead from 1962-1963.
This was the first full year that the Camp was opened.  Most of the time I was working the rides in the amusement park. I helped build the Big Dipper, which was 70ft high, but is gone now.  Some nights I sang on the stage under the name of Elvis the 2nd, singing mostly his and Cliff Richard songs. When I was at the camp there was three Dance Floors, One for Rock & Roll, another for ballroom dancing, which once held the Come Dancing competition for the BBC. And the third was for general activities.   I danced every night in the ballroom, I was disappointed when I went back to the camp last year (2006) and found that there was no ballroom there now, just the building that housed them. I still go dancing twice a week where we now live. In the summer of 1963, I meat a girl from Wales who was on holiday at the camp. I moved to Wales and we got married, We have been married forty-three years, have two Children and Four Grand Children.