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Timberscombe
Timberscombe photos
Displaying the first of 3 old photos of Timberscombe. View all Timberscombe photos
Timberscombe maps
Historic maps of Timberscombe and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Timberscombe maps
Timberscombe area books
Displaying 1 of 11 books about Timberscombe and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Timberscombe
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Timberscombe.
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Old Stowey
My parents bought Old Stowey from Major Enderby, sadly after my father's death in 1970 the place was sold for 50.000 complete with farm workers cottages & 600 acres. I now see it's on the market with 40 acres for 1.5 million. I really loved the area but could be desolate when the cloud closed in and when the snow came. My parents are buried in Cutcombe churchyard. I would like to live near there again but am currently waiting for a visa to emmigrate to Perth in West Australia to be near my children.
Timberscombe 1957-1965
We moved to Oaktrow in January 1957, me travelling in the cattle truck. The rest went by car. We stayed the first week or so at the Lion Inn, Timberscombe. Oaktrow had been purchased the previous summer. We eventually moved in and gradually things got more civilised. I liked staying in the village and playing skittles at the pub. In those days there were 3 shops nearby. These were Mrs Yeandle's, the Coombe Stores and S J. Loveridge. Nearby lived 2 farmers viz Harry Bishop at Great House and Tommy Heard at Kiln Farm. Our daily, Mrs Prole, lived near the church and on the corner was Mrs Huxtable's filling station which seemed open all hours. Going towards Dunster was the post office run by the Bond's whose daughter was church organist and the Forge run by Sammy and Ken Grabham. It was more of a woodyard than a forge! Nearby was Knowle, which is now a holiday place for horseriders etc. Going towards Wheddon Cross, the next farm was... Read more
Kings Langley
The first 8 plus years of my life were spent here at Merrow Down, off the Common. The only time we were away was for a few months in 1939-40 during the Phoney War. I had various nannies, the best being Flora. She came about autumn 1940 and stayed until autumn 1942 when 'called up ' for work of national importance (day nurseries) and my mother had to cope with both my sister and I. It was a shock to her. I went to Mrs Hazlewood's school a few doors down for a year and then to The Priory. I didn't like it there and was going to London weekly for psychiatric treatment. In the spring I was sent to a sort of boarding school in Berkhamsted, with visits to psychiatrists weekly. My gullible mother swallowed everything they told her, which were a pack of lies. It was staffed by weird females and exercise consisted of walks. One of the women was called Anita and she was a blonde. She... Read more
The Timberscombe I Knew (1957-1965)
We moved to Oaktrow in January 1957 and until the house was habitable, we stayed at The Lion (prominently displayed in one of the photos). The village then had four shops, these being the Post Office towards Minehead, Mrs Yeandle's, the Coombe Stores (very successful under Basil Hewlett and his wife) and Loveridge's which was on the way to Stowey. Mrs Yeandle, a large woman, sang in the choir, Sid Loveridge was in and out of the Lion all and every evening. Barley wine and whisky was his tipple. The barley wine took the sting out of the whisky.
The Huxtable family had two filling stations, the forge was run by Sammy and Ken Grabham. Tommy Heard had Kiln Farm and Harry Bishop had Great House Farm. The school was run by Mrs Willis. There was an agricultural engineer called Les Delbridge. Other farmers living nearby were James Henderson at Allercot, Bill Edwards-Heathcote at Beasley, Mr Watts at Stowey, Major Enderby at Old Stowey and the Dru family at Bickham.
Somerset memories
My Grampy
My Grandad, Cyril Albert Dibble was born here on 9th October 1920.
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... Read more
Growing up in Alcombe
I was living with my grandparents at that time, Amy & Sid Berry, their son Stanley (uncle to me) was the local hairdresser and he went around on a pushbike, later a moterbike & side car, to cut local men's hair. Everybody knew Stan, he later opened a shop in Alcombe next door to the fish & chip shop & later a shop by Legs sweet shop in Alcombe. I have lovely memories of those years, and my aunt, Stan's sister, still lives in the same house in Hayfield Road where I was born (a sister & brother of mine were also born there). Times must have been hard in those years but for me they were happy times, always people coming in to see my Gran who also had people staying at different times that had been billeted out because of the war so Gran was kept busy with cooking and washing, there were no wash machines, fridges, microwaves etc like today's modcoms, still she kept happy. I... Read more
