Combe Florey Primary School

A Memory of Combe Florey.

The village school in Combe Florey closed in about 1958 I believe, it exists as a private house now, but I can still remember the mile long walk to and from it, through the lanes every morning and afternoon. Mum would accompany us with younger siblings in a big green metal pushchair, so for her it was twice the distance. I remember little of the actual school, except that it was one big room with tall windows and a wood burning stove in it. The playground was on the other side of the road, so we were all hearded across at playtime and shut in, and then hearded back afterwards. I dont remember how many were at the school, but from the names I can still recall there must have been in the region of fifteen to twenty of us. I left when I was about seven, to go to the nearby Lydeard St Lawrence primary school. The school mistress was called Mrs Warren, and lived in a pink coloured cottage just down from the school, I seem to remember she was very strict, but when I fell off the crossbar of a friends bike and put my teeth through my lip she was very kind, she took me in and cleaned me up and gave me orange juice and chocolate, not something we had very often. My elder sister, my brother and I went there, but my two youngest sisters started school life at the near-by Lydeard St Lawrence primary school.
Combe Florey school is situated at the top of the village, and from it the road winds down past the pretty red stone church on the left, opposite which is still a stone biult nook with a spring bubbling up, where horses could take a drink. Then on past the gatehouse the stands over the drive up to the big house on the hill, Combe Florey house, where Evelyn Waugh lived. When we walked home from school, my sister and I would climb over the perimeter wall to watch the peacocks, play amongst the trees and look in the lake that hid behind it. Our walk home continued past the cemetry on the right and the village hall. Just past the hall is a small lane to the left, but if you went straight on and over a small bridge there was a Post Office Stores. Just beyond the PO was the manor house, a beautiful place that opened it's gardens for summer fetes and garden parties. But we took the little lane that terminates beside a couple of houses, and turns into a footpath that runs along beside the stream. I remeber dad driving his big black split screen Wolsey along the river bed now and then, and coming out at the other end just in front of the Farmers Arms, a thatched public house. The place was a definate no no for us when we were kids, but it's now a picturesque watering hole, and has the added attraction of steam trains close-by, the Minehead to Bishops Lydeard steam railway is only yards from the frontdoor. We continued up the hill to the right, over the railway line and past the woods to Nethercott Farm, then turned right and on up the lane to the red brick farmhouse on top of the hill, which is where we lived.

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