The Lost Village of Clicket

The Lost Village of Clicket is located on a public footpath, which runs along a damp and dark valley bottom parallel to an unnamed stream between Luxborough Churchtown and Timberscombe.  It is very easy to miss, as there are no information boards and the various ruins of houses, a farm, a mill, quarries and limekilns are very overgrown, particularly in the summer months. 

Clicket was never a large settlement and the various buildings which made up the "village" were scattered along the valley bottom.  Bickham's Mill (also called Beckham Mill) was located to the north east of Clicket on the east side of the valley.  Thorn Farm, which is now ruined, was further up the eastern side of the valley to the east of Bickham's Mill.  Thorn Farm and Bickham's Mill may date from the medieval period.  The village of Clicket may have existed as early as the 14th century but it doesn't definitely appear in records until 1809.

In the 1851 Census there were 14 people living in Clicket in four families called Cole, Tarr and Williams (2 families). In 1861 the population of Clicket was 15: there were four families - Williams, Tarr and Webber (x2).  Clicket was not listed separately in 1871 but in 1881 there were 20 people listed as living there in three families - Webber (x2) and Hole.

The last baby to be born at Clicket was Lily Burge (later Bryant), who was born in 1889 (she died in 1977 in Bristol).  In 1890 Clicket was abandoned because there was no employment left (the quarry and mill had closed), farming was in a depression and with no road access the village was too inaccessible.

Ruined house at Clicket in December 2017

 

Ruined house in Summer 2015

Miscellaneous ruins

More ruins

I think this is the remains of a lime kiln close to the disused Nurcott Quarries to the south of Clicket

Wall - not sure to what it once belonged

Packhorse Bridge in December 2017

 

The same bridge in Summer 2015

Ruins of Bickham's/Beckham Mill

Bickham's Mill

Not so lost after all!