Behind Princes Road

A Memory of Shepton Mallet.

I kept looking at this photo & wondering why it seemed a familiar view...Then, with the aid of maps & old pictures realised it was taken from the field (Barren Down?) behind my old school, Ivey House. On the right of the picture is the old Hospital, & you can make out the church of St Peters & St Paul in the middle distance. The wall you can see is of the back gardens of the houses in Princes Road.
The hospital & school have been private residences for many years, but I am glad to see the field is still there, & part of the East Mendip Way. Behind the photographer is the old railway line, scene of many a childhood adventure. If you walked West for a mile or so, you'd come to the Windsor Hill dump, which youngsters would root through in search of scrap metal or electrical parts or go shooting rats with airguns. One schoolfriend bought his first motorbike new out of selling 'recycled' scrap. Another used to salvage & rebuild old valve radios - he later went on to work for Marconi as a scientist. I didn't shoot at the rats, most disappeared in daytime, but had great fun with cans & bottles on the dump with my 1950's Diana 27 .22. Dreaming of the day I would own a BSA Airsporter or Webley Mk 3.
Which did happen, but nearly 50 years later.
A little further on were some sealed railway tunnels. The dump has been filled in, but it is easy to see on satellite maps.
One of the Windsor Hill tunnels was used by RR to test Concord engines in 1969, hence the sealing of them & Radioactive Oil signs up. During the latter stages of the Cold War planning permission was applied for to convert them to 'private' nuclear shelters, but never acted upon. They have since been opened up.
The second Concorde prototype was flown from Filton, Bristol, nearby. It was a fairly common sight (& sound) overhead on test flights in the early '70's.