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Over Stowey
Over Stowey maps
Historic maps of Over Stowey and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Over Stowey maps
Over Stowey area books
Displaying 1 of 11 books about Over Stowey and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Over Stowey
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Over Stowey.
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An Evacuee's Memory
I was evacuated to Over Stowey in 1939 at the start of the Second World War. I was lucky becauseIi was with my mother and brother and sister, who was a babe in arms. I was ten years old and my brother was eight. Two ladies were owners of the house where we stayed, which is the house next to the church in the photograph. We were with another family from the same street in London and one of the children was my playmate in London. We were evacuated from Canning Town in east London. We were only there for four days because we had bread and jam for breakfast, tea and supper for 3 days running. When my mother asked if they ever had meat, the lady said they thought that's all we had in London. She said we would have a special meal the next day. It was called Jugged Hare, which was hung in the orchard for a week until there were thousands of maggots in it... Read more
Somerset memories
A Memory of Coultings, nr Fiddington
In April 1963, my ex husband and I moved from Nottingham to Coultings, he to work on a farm owned by the Triggol family. We lived in a thick-walled cottage on the main road through Coultings, which had a Victorian letter box in the wall of one of the other houses. There weren't many residents of the hamlet, some farm workers and families and a few others. There was a phone box, and the travelling library came every couple of weeks, which was wonderful. The bus went through twice a week to Bridgewater which is where we shopped. The bakers van came a couple of times a week and the butcher also, and there was a converted ambulance that came through with groceries and fresh fish. Although that was a bit expensive for the humble wage that a farm worker earned back then. The cottage we lived in was fairly old, but did have a bathroom built on and a Rayburn in the kitchen, and a fireplace in... Read more
How Things Change
This is my house where I was brought up since the age of 10. How things change over the years - it is no longer a post office, it changed to a cafe and now is a two-bed bungalow attched to the house behind.
Halsway Manor
I discovered this amazing place in 2006 and only wish I had known of it 50 years ago as it is an oasis of rural bliss where folk musicians and dancers meet like-minded people to practise and learn from one another. I first went there to meet some folk musicians one Sunday evening so I took along my piano accordian to join in the session in the Halsway Manor bar. It was really wonderful to be able to play in such a grand atmosphere. Since then I have returned a dozen times for similar music groups and on one occasion I went along on a summer afternoon to see the maypole dancing on the Halsway Manor front lawn.
Childhood
My father came to Townsend Farm as the tenant in Sept 1940. The farmhouse is shown on the left in the picture titled Townsend. At that time I was only 15 months. My earliest memories are of the later war years. We had evacuees from Bristol living in part of the house. I also remember sitting on the garden wall which was alongside the main road and being thrown chewing gum by the American soldiers billeted at the nearby camp at Alfoxden. My brother and the boy in the other half of the house, Vernon, were green with envy when they got home from school.
My father had milking cows, milked by hand in the war years. He supplied milk to the villagers which had to be collected from the farm by the village children and delivered to their neighbours before going to school. I well recollect ladeling out a pint or half-pint measure into an enamel jug or can with lid and well schooled... Read more
Combe Florey Primary School
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,... Read more
Collecting Parafin
I remember well having to walk from Greenway estate to collect parafin from the machine outside of the garage on the right. Every day we walked to school in the village and we would call into the shop and spend our pennies on sweets, ice pops on the way home if it was hot.
