Porlock

Standing at the bottom of the notoriously steep climb of Porlock Hill, the Ship Inn appears little changed today, despite the removal of its attractive rustic wooden porches. Note the lofty chimney rising high over the thatch. It was supposedly in this inn that the prolific writer, Robert Southey, a close friend of Coleridge and poet laureate from 1807, composed his verse on Porlock’s ‘verdant vale’.
An extract from from"English Villages".

Porlock’s High Street has changed little, and traffic on the A39 has not increased enough to initiate a long proposed by-pass. The café with the balcony, now the Countryman Restaurant, was originally the Methodist chapel, and Smith’s garage, beyond, is also a restaurant, taking trade from passing tourists.
An extract from from"Somerset Living Memories".

This is another scene that has little changed: there is still a chemist’s and candy shop on the right and garage on the left, minus petrol pumps. Leach’s shops (left) became the library and now three shops. At the end of the street, with the tall chimney, is the 15th-century Doverhay Manor, now Porlock’s museum.
An extract from from"Somerset Living Memories".

Redevelopment of the Parade started c1870. Lime trees were planted in the 1880s to start the Avenue. The buildings to the left of photograph 31223 had just been built, replacing houses with walled gar- dens. The building in the centre of the row, at the end of Bancks Street, was all that remained of the older buildings. Then a bank, it is now an estate agents. The building protruding at the end of the row, in Wellington Square, is now a bank. Capron’s, the building on the far left, became a well-known garage. It was Minehead’s first garage, established in 1908. Two other garages were established before the First World War but a petrol shortage during the First World War meant horse drawn carriages and bicycles remained popular until the 1920s.
An extract from from"Minehead Town and City Memories".

The architectural style is actually one which is common to areas around the Bristol Channel. The oldest cottages are based on what is known as a ‘cross passage’ design, whereby a passage runs straight from front to back door, dividing the house. In the original cottages there were usually two rooms on the upslope side of the passage and a ‘shippon’ (cow shed) on the downslope side. In medieval times the living quarters would have been heated by a fire in the middle of the floor of the main room with the smoke simply drifting out through the thatch, blackening the roof beams as it went. One house near Church Steps is called the Hearth House, implying it originated from such a cottage. None survive in their original state and all have been enlarged. Most were enlarged upwards, with bedrooms added, their little semi- dormer windows breaking the line of eaves. When this happened, the smoke from the fire had to be diverted, so it was usual to add a tall chimney to the front of the house, with a bulging bread oven at its base. This tended to happen in the 17th century, when the town grew prosperous and chimneys became a status symbol for householders showing off their new wealth.
An extract from from"Minehead Town and City Memories".