The Nailsea Coalfield

Nailsea hides its coal mining heritage well.  Most visitors to the town are unlikely to notice the few remaining engine and winding houses or spoil heaps.

The Nailsea Coalfield is an outlying section of the much larger Somerset and Bristol Coalfield. Coal seams in the Nailsea area, which are sandwiched between layers of pennant sandstone, are located in an arc around the north and east of the town.  The arc starts in the North Street/Union Street area of the town.  It then runs parallel to Silver Street and High Street and continues on through Nailsea Park, Trendlewood and down to Backwell Common and the railway station.  The coal measures are deepest in the centre of the arc.  The deepest mine was Golden Valley at around 620 feet deep.

Coal mining in Nailsea started in the early 16th century when it is recorded that coal was transported from Nailsea to Yatton to be burnt in a limekiln. At first the coal was only mined where it outcropped near the surface but by the mid-18th century deep pit mining had commenced.  There were 10 workable coal seams.  Some of them were up to 3 feet 6 inches thick but others were only 18 inches thick and it was barely viable to mine these thinner seams.  

Some of the Nailsea coal mines were privately owned but many of them were run by, or associated with, one company – White & Co.  This company started in 1786 as a 3 man partnership between Isaac White, Peter Cox and Joseph Whitchurch.  In 1788 Bristol glassmaker John Robert Lucas bought a share in the partnership and set up a glassworks in Nailsea, which provided a market for the coal. 

Power for winding in the mines was initially provided by horses.  Steam pumping engines were introduced in the mid-18th century.  This enabled the mining of coal measures, which couldn’t previously be exploited due to flooding.  Horses continued to be used for winding purposes until well into the 19th century.  Ponies (and young boys) were also employed below ground to haul sleds and waggons containing coal.

Tramways were built to link up some of the collieries (Youngwood/Whiteoak and Grace’s/West End) with the main railway line, which reached Nailsea in the 1840s.

Most of the coal produced was sold locally to heat houses and churches in the town and surrounding villages, to fire local lime kilns, to power the Nailsea Glassworks and in the pits themselves to fire the steam engines.

Output from the Nailsea Coalfield reached its peak in the 1850s.  In the 1841 Census there were 149 people in Nailsea and Backwell who were directly connected with coal production.  This number rose to 193 in 1851, then fell to 170 in 1861 and 70 in 1871.  It rose to 103 in 1881 but by 1891 only 16 people were employed producing coal.   Coal mines in the Nailsea area started to decline in the 1860s due to competition from larger mines in South Wales and the North of England, where the coal was cheaper and easier to extract.  Nailsea Glassworks closed in 1873 and the last Nailsea coal mine (Whiteoak) closed in 1882.

Several examples of winding and pumping houses remain, three as ruins and two as conversions into dwellings. The most obvious remains are the small winding tower in Millennium Park, which was once part of the Old Glasshouse Pit. The Middle Engine/Elms Pit complex in the Cherington Road/Oaksey Grove area of Golden Valley is now a scheduled monument. The engine house from Farler’s Pit survives in the garden of a private house on the corner of Queens Road and Station Road.  In North Lane an engine house has been converted into a cottage and Tall Cottage in Union Street was possibly formerly an engine house.

The remains of horse whims survive at Old Glasshouse Pit and Middle Engine Pit.  Spoil heaps remain from Golden Valley, Buckland’s Batch/Goddins, East End, Backwell Common and Youngs Pits.

Former Engine House on North Street, now converted to a private house

Spoil heap on Backwell Common

Remains of Old Glasshouse Pit's horse whim in Millennium Park

The ruined winding tower of Old Glasshouse Pit in Millennium Park

Spoil heap from Youngs Pit in Nailsea Park

Poets' Walk, Clevedon

The town of Clevedon has connections to two of England’s best known poets. Poets’ Walk is a popular footpath which runs along the coast and around Wain’s Hill and Church Hill at the southern end of Clevedon.  The walk is said to have inspired poets such as Alfred Tennyson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Makepeace Thackeray, who visited the town.  The formal path which exists today was constructed in 1929. Poets’ Walk was designated as a Local Nature Reserve in 1993.

Poets' Walk signpost

Poets' Walk

Poets' Walk

Poets' Walk

The Sugar Lookout is a feature on Poets’ Walk. It was built by Ferdinand Beeston in around 1835.  It is said to have been used in the mid-19^th century by a family of sugar importers called Finzel to look out for ships sailing up the Bristol Channel, which were carrying sugar from the West Indies.  It later fell into ruin but has recently been restored.

Sugar Lookout overlooking the Bristol Channel

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his wife Sarah spent the first few months of their married life in a cottage on Old Church Road in Clevedon in 1795.

Coleridge Cottage, Old Church Road, Clevedon

In the mid-18^th century the author William Makepeace Thackeray was a frequent visitor of the Elton Family, who lived at Clevedon Court.  He is best known as a novelist but he did also write some poetry.

Alfred Tennyson had a close friend at Cambridge University called Arthur Hallam.  Arthur’s mother was a member of the Elton family of Clevedon Court.  Arthur, who was a poet and essayist, was engaged to marry Tennyson’s sister Emily but he died suddenly in Vienna in 1833 at the age of 22.  His body was brought back to England and he was buried in the family vault at St Andrew’s Church in Clevedon.  In 1850 Tennyson wrote a poem called In Memorium in tribute to his friend.  In the same year he made his first visit to Clevedon.  The house on Old Church Road in Clevedon, where he is said to have stayed, is called Tennyson House.   A nearby road is called Tennyson Avenue.

Tennyson House, Old Church Road

Tennyson Avenue, Clevedon

St Andrew's Church, Clevedon

Goblin Combe

Goblin Combe is a gorge, which was formed during the last ice age by melting snow and ice cutting into limestone. It is located to the east of the village of Cleeve. The site is comprised of a steep sided dry valley with extensive areas of limestone scree, areas of semi-natural ancient woodland, unimproved calcareous grassland and limestone heath.  These types of habitat are rare in England and Goblin Combe was designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1999.  How the valley came to be called Goblin Combe is not entirely certain.  In the past it was also known as Gobble Combe and Eagle’s Combe

Most of Goblin Combe and the limestone grassland to the north of it is a nature reserve, which is owned and managed by Avon Wildlife Trust.  A public footpath runs along the bottom of the combe and there are a number of other permissive paths in the nature reserve and in the adjacent woods at the east end of the combe.

The woodland consists mainly of oak and ash trees with some beech, field maple, yew, whitebeam and hazel. In the dim light at the bottom of the combe ferns such as hart’s tongue and the rarer limestone and moonwort ferns grow. The nationally scarce stinking hellebore grows on the limestone screes. 

Over 30 types of butterfly have been found in the vicinity of Goblin Combe, including some rare varieties: grizzled and dingy skippers; silver washed and dark green fritillaries; purple and green hairstreaks; brown argus, grayling and white admiral.  Dormice and greater horseshoe bats also live in the combe.  Visitors are however unlikely to encounter any goblins! 

The ramparts of an ancient hillfort can be seen at Cleeve Toot to the north west of Goblin Combe.  It is thought to date from the late Bronze or early Iron Age.   150 metres to the north of the hillfort are the remains of another smaller ancient settlement.

Goblin Combe Environment Centre, which was located in a Victorian former school building on Plunder Street at the west end of the combe, provided learning and outdoor experiences for schools, clubs, youth and community groups but closed down in 2018.  The future of the building is currently uncertain.

The peace and quiet of the combe is broken intermittently by planes flying low overhead, as Goblin Come is very close to the western end of Bristol Airport’s runway.

Top of the limestone cliffs on the north side of the gorge

Public footpath along the bottom of Goblin Combe

Permissive path up the side of Goblin Combe

Seat at the bottom of Goblin Combe

Steep side of Goblin Combe

Goblin Combe Environment Centre

Plane coming into land at Bristol Airport seen from the edge of the woods at the east end of Goblin Combe

RAF Culm Head

The airfield at RAF Culm Head was constructed in 1940-41.  It was initially called RAF Church Stanton.  It was the first of 3 airfields to be built on the plateau at the top of the Blackdown Hills (the others were RAF Upottery/Smeatharpe and RAF Dunkeswell).  It was brought into service in June 1941 to provide shelter from bombing raids for aircraft, which were normally based at RAF Exeter but it was not officially opened until 1st August 1941.  

The first fighter squadrons to be based at RAF Church Stanton were with the Polish 2nd Fighter Wing (nos 302, 306 and 312).  They flew Mk II Hurricanes and later Spitfires Mk V.  They helped to defend the cities of Exeter and Bristol.  A Research Flight also conducted barrage balloon cable cutting experiments from Culm Head.

In June 1942 the Poles were replaced by Czechoslovakian Squadrons (nos 312 and 313), who flew Spitfires from here until June 1943.  In December 1943 the name of the airfield was changed from RAF Church Stanton to RAF Culm Head, to avoid confusion with other airfields with Church as a prefix e.g. Fenton and Broughton. 

The next occupants were the Naval Fighter Wing (Squadrons no 894 and 897) with Seafire IIIs.  They pursued enemy shipping in the English Channel and provided fighter cover for RAF Typhoon squadrons.

In March 1944 No 156 Squadron were based at Culm Head for a month with Mark IX Spitfires.  They were replaced by 610, 286  and 587 Squadrons with Mark XIV Spitfires.

After D-Day (6th June 1944), in July 1944 126, 131 and 616 Squadrons arrived to act as bomber escorts and to conduct attacks ahead of the arrival of ground troops in parts of France.  616 Squadron were equipped and trained with two Bristol Gloster Meteor fighters.  These were the allies first operational jet-propelled aircraft.

RAF Culm Head was placed under care and maintenance by November 1944.  It became active again in January 1945 when it was used by Flying Training Command when it was used as a satellite to RAF Exeter and Headquarters for No 3 Glider Training School.  They used it until July 1945 when it returned to care and maintenance status.  It was closed down in August 1946.

Map showing the layout of RAF Culm Head

Blister Hangar

This was used for the storage and maintenance of small aircraft

Pillbox with loopholes for rifles and machine guns

Key-hole shaped Gun Pit
This is the best preserved of 8 brick-lined gun pits located around the edges of the airfield. 

Aircraft Fighter Pens

These were designed to house two twin-engined aircraft

Aircraft Fighter Pens

Flight Offices

Tank Training on North Hill during the Second World War

In 1942 North Hill was taken into military control and it became the Minehead Armoured Vehicle Fighting Range.  It was one of five new tank training grounds in Britain.  Civilian access to North Hill was banned and the farms at East and West Myne were evacuated. A number of buildings were constructed, some with underground storage facilities, which were probably used either as air raid shelters or for the storage of tank ammunition. 

A concrete tank marshalling area was constructed at Moor Wood.  Four Nissen huts were probably also erected in this area, to provide accommodation for soldiers. 21 slit trenches (2 metres long by 1 metre wide) were constructed in this area, although their original purpose is unclear: they may have been part of the firing range or part of the defences of the nearby radar station.

Concrete roads were constructed that led west from Moor Wood to the tank firing ranges where there were three large triangles, which the tanks drove round and some sections of light railway, which were used to support moving targets.

Canadians troops, who had helped construct the site were the first to use it. 100 units were trained at North Hill in 1943, including many American troops preparing for D-Day.  Compared to other tank training grounds, such as Castlemartin in Pembrokeshire and Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway, the site at North Hill was small and offered only 3 firing areas with limited firing arcs.  However in the second half of 1944 it was used to train 40 American armoured units, which was more than at any other site.

The site closed on 9th November 1944 and the land was returned to civilian use, although the farmhouses at East and West Myne were not reoccupied. By the 1950s the buildings had all been removed.  However the concrete bases of the Nissen huts and the tank marshalling area at Moor Wood can still be seen, as can sections of concrete road further west.

The RADAR (RAdio Detecting And Ranging) station at North Hill was completed by February 1942,  It housed equipment, which was used to detect ships and aircraft flying at less than 500 feet.  It was known as a Chain Home Low (CHL) Station.  Inside the main concrete building there were three rooms and a hole in the roof connected the equipment inside to an external rotating antenna on a 10 foot high gantry.  There was a cluster of other associated buildings nearby: operations, power, administration and standby blocks.  The radar station was staffed 24 hours a day, often by women. By 1944 there were 244 radar stations across the country.  The radar station at Minehead closed in 1946 and most of the buildings, apart from the radar station itself had been demolished by 1950.

Tank marshalling area at Moor Wood

Concrete base of a Nissen hut at Moor Wood

Concrete base of a Nissen hut at Moor Wood

Radar Station near Moor Wood

Entrance to the Radar Station

Tank Washing Platform

The Rock of Ages, Burrington Combe

Augustus Montague Toplady was a Church of England clergyman and hymn writer.  He was born at Farnham in Surrey on 4^th November 1740 but grew up and was educated in London.  He went to university in Dublin and then returned to London.  He met and was influenced by many Calvinist ministers but he was ordained a deacon in the Church of England by the Bishop of Bath and Wells on 5^th June 1762 and given the curacy of Blagdon in North Somerset.  He stayed there for less than two years and preached his last sermon at Blagdon on 29^th April 1764. He returned briefly to London, then was curate at Farleigh Hungerford near Frome for a year.  He was then vicar of Harpford and Venn Ottery and later at Broadhembury in East Devon.  He died of tuberculosis in Knightsbridge, London on 11^th August 1778 and was buried at Whitefield’s Tabernacle in Tottenham Court Road, London.

It is during his two years in Blagdon that Augustus Toplady is said to have sheltered from a storm in a cleft in the rock in Burrington Combe. This is supposed to have inspired him to write the hymn Rock of Ages, which starts and ends with the lines:

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee”

This story is however unlikely to be true.  The first verse of Rock of Ages was not published until 1775 and the rest of the hymn was published the following year. His main work Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Worship was published in 1776.  However Rock of Ages is the only one of his hymns that still remains popular today.

The crag in which the Rock of Ages is located is composed of Burrington oolite, which is a coral rich limestone.  The Rock of Ages is located at the side of the B3134, which runs the length of Burrington Combe, and is almost opposite a car park.  The grid reference is ST476 587. 

Rock of Ages, Burrington Combe

Plaque on the Rock of Ages

St Andrew's Church, Blagdon

Further Reading:

Rock of ages: the diary of an eighteenth century country parson: A.M.Toplady. Ina Books, 1987

Portbury Standing Stone

 A 1.8 metre high standing stone of Dolomitic Conglomerate is currently situated on a patch of grass between the school and the parish church of St Mary the Virgin in the village of Portbury. It is thought to have been quarried from nearby Conygar Hill around 2,000 BC but its original location and purpose are unknown. It was re-erected by the Portbury Historical Association in its present position after it was retrieved from an old dew pond behind the church in September 1987.  It had been placed in the pond in the 1950s along with other rubble when the pond was filled in.

Portbury Standing Stone

Standing Stone outside the church

Long Ashton Research Station

 In 1903 Lady Emily Smyth, widow of Sir Greville Smyth (owner of the Ashton Court Estate) provided six hectares of land in Long Ashton so that a National Fruit and Cider Institute could be set up. In 1912 Lady Emily Smyth gave more land to allow the expansion of the institute.  At this time it became the University of Bristol’s Department of Agricultural and Horticultural Research and it was renamed the Long Ashton Research Station.

During the early years research concentrated on improving the growing of cider apples and the production of cider.  Later its remit widened to include most fruit crops, especially pears, apples, plums, strawberries and blackcurrants. Many new varieties of fruit which were developed were named after local towns, rivers and hills e.g. the Cheddar Cross apple, Mendip cross blackcurrant and Severn Cross plum.

In the 1930s work on fruit juices and syrups led to the commercial production of blackcurrant juice (which was later marketed as Ribena) and rose hip syrup.  These were important home grown sources of vitamin C during the Second World War.  Research into willows started in the 1940s and continued with breeding varieties for biomass production.

In the 1980s the staff at Long Ashton began research into arable crops.  In 1986 fruit research stopped at Long Ashton when this work was transferred to East Malling Research Station in Kent.

Long Ashton Research Station closed in 2003 and many areas of its work were transferred to Rothamsted Experimental Station (now Rothamsted Research) at Harpenden in Hertfordshire.

• The key achievements of the Long Ashton Research Station were:         
• Research into cider making
• Research into plant breeding, nutrition, crop diseases, weeds, cropping systems and crop protection, especially spray techniques
• The creation of the National Willow Collection (which is now located at Rothamsted) and research into the use of willows for biomass production and gasification.
• Research into genetically modified crops, especially wheat and oilseed rape.
• Finding ways to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on crops such as wheat, barley and oilseed rape.
• Research into the production of high value chemicals in plants and the role of hormones in plant development.

The site at Long Ashton was sold off and redeveloped for housing.  However its existence is commemorated by an old cider press and in the street names on the new housing estate – Pear Tree Avenue, Bramley Copse, Perry Road and Blackcurrant Drive.

Old cider press on Pear Tree Avenue, commemorating 100 years of agricultural and horticultural research at Long Ashton

Pear Tree Avenue and Bramley Copse - a reminder of the site's past

Blackcurrant Drive, Long Ashton

Dawn Redwood

The Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) tree was discovered growing near the remote village of Mo-tao-chi in the Chinese province of Sichuan in the 1940s. In 1946 it was identified by Professor Cheng of China’s National Central University as a Metasequoia, a species of tree which was thought to have been extinct for 5 million years. Dawn Redwoods are fast growing deciduous conifers.  They have now been planted in many parks and botanical gardens but they are still a critically endangered species in the wild.  The Dawn Redwood at Long Ashton Research Station now stands on Pear Tree Avenue. 

Dawn Redwood on Pear Tree Avenue

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff near Cardiff on 13^th September 1916. His parents, Harald and Sofie Dahl, were Norwegians and his father was a shipbroker. In 1918 his sister Else was born and the family moved to Radyr, a village just outside Cardiff.  In 1920 Roald’s 7 year old sister Astri died of appendicitis, a few weeks later his father died at the age of 57 and later the same year Roald’s youngest sister Asta was born.  In 1921 the family moved back to Llandaff.

From 1923-25 Roald attended Llandaff Cathedral School.  In 1925 he went as a boarder to St Peter’s School in Shrubbery Road, Weston-super-Mare.  He was very homesick at first but remained at the school until 1929 when he was 13.  He then attended Repton Public School until he was 18.  St Peter’s School closed and was demolished in the 1970s and a housing estate was built on the site.  The only physical reminder of its existence is one of the roads, which is named St Peters Avenue.  Roald Dahl’s autobiography, Boy, includes several chapters about his time at St Peter’s School.

St Peters Avenue, Weston-super-Mare

Blue plaque on 2 St Peters Avenue, Weston-super-Mare

In 1934 Roald began working for Shell Oil in Tanganyika but at the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the RAF in Nairobi, Kenya and learnt to fly a Tiger Moth plane.  He was severely injured in a plane crash in Libya in 1940 and as a result of his injuries he was no longer able to fly and returned to Britain in 1941.

In 1942 he was posted to Washington DC as an Assistant Air Attaché in the British Embassy.  He remained in the USA for 4 years and it was during this time that he began to write and had his first book, The Gremlins, published.  In 1946 his first short story collection, Over to You, was published and he returned to the UK.  He moved to Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire with his mother and sister Asta.

In 1953 he married the American actress Patricia Neal and they had 4 daughters and a son together, although their daughter Olivia died of measles encephalitis aged 7 in 1962.  In 1954 they bought Little Whitefield Cottage in Great Missenden.  They later renamed it Gipsy House.  This was the place where Roald Dahl lived for the rest of his life.  He wrote many of his stories sitting in an armchair in a writing hut, which he had built in the garden of his house.

Gipsy House, Great Missenden

In 1961 Roald Dahl’s first famous children’s book, James and the Giant Peach, was published in the USA.  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was published in the USA in 1964.  Both were published in the UK in 1967 and so was The Magic Finger.  Roald Dahl wrote the screenplay for the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice, which was released in 1967. Many more of his stories and books of poetry for children, along with several short story collections for adults, were published in the 1970s and 1980s. 

In 1981 Roald separated from his wife Patricia and in 1983 he married Felicity Crosland. Esio Trot was the last book to be published in his lifetime.  He died on 23^rd November 1990 aged 74 and was buried in the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul’s Church in Great Missenden.  His last book, The Minpins, was published posthumously in 1991.

Roald Dahl's grave

Many of Roald Dahl’s short stories and children’s books have been made into films or television programmes.  He is still one of the world’s best-selling authors.

In 2005 the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre was opened in Great Missenden.

Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden

Enormous Crocodile sculpture, Cardiff Bay

Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay

Roald Dahl's family regularly worshipped at this church in its original location in Cardiff Docks, close to where the Millennium Centre now stands. It was dismantled in 1987 and re-erected in its current position in 1992.  It is now used as an arts centre and café.