Judy Dunn's memorial in Horner Wood

In Horner Woods in West Somerset there is a footpath called Cat's Scramble, which leads uphill in a southerly direction from the village of Horner.  Under a large tree (possibly a pollarded oak) above the path, there is a large horizontal inscribed stone with the following words on it:

Judy
Beloved wife of 

Robin Dunn

1919-1995

My soul is here I did not die

Judith (Judy) Allan Pilcher was born in Somerset on 14th September 1919.  While she was working as a Land Girl in 1940, she met Captain Robin H.W. Dunn.  He had been posted to Minehead after returning to England via the Dunkirk Evacuation in May/June 1940.  Judy and Robin got married in All Saints' Church, Selworthy in August 1941.  They had two daughters and a son together.  Robin Dunn was appointed QC in 1962, knighted in 1969 and appointed Lord Justice of Appeal in 1980.  He was also on the committee of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds.  Judy died on 17th August 1995 and is buried at All Saints Church in Selworthy.   I presume Horner Woods was one of her favourite places, which is why her memorial stone is located there.

In 1997 Sir Robin Dunn married Joan Stafford-King-Harman.  He died on 5th March 2014, age 96. Joan Dunn died in July 2018, age 100.

Judy Dunn's memorial stone in Horner Woods

Memorial stone under the tree

Tree with memorial stone underneath

Bats, Badgers, Boars, Beavers and Bunnies (+ the odd hare)

I have seen real wild bats, badgers, bunnies and hares in Somerset but I have not yet seen a beaver or a wild boar.  I found these creatures in churches, churchyards, meadows, woods, lanes and adorning walls at various locations across Somerset.  

The Belfry, near Priddy

This is the headquarters of the Bristol Exploration Club

Bat mural, Grange Drive, Taunton

Along with three other wildlife murals (a hedgehog, two watervoles and some bees), this bat mural was painted in August 2015 by Brazilian artist Louis Masai.  The North Taunton Art Trail was part of Somerset Wildlife Trust's Routes to the River Tone Project.

Bat carved into a bench end at Crowcombe  Church

Bat carved into a seat in Middlezoy Churchyard

Badgers Cross Farm, Mill Lane, south of Somerton

Badger carved in Hamstone on a footpath near Chiselborough

Badgers Holt pub, Bridgetown

Badger in the churchyard at Oake

Two badgers (and a robin and some Exmoor ponies) on a stained glass window in Winsford Church

Two rabbits (and a stag) on a stained glass window in Winsford Church

West door of Norton-sub-Hamdon Church

I think this is a rabbit?

Rabbit (and hedgehog) Oake Churchyard

Beaver at the deserted village of Clicket

His purpose in life is to be a target for field archery practice!

Wild boar in Barrington

Boxing hares willow sculpture, Steart Marshes

Hare, Ashill

Hare chainsaw sculpture, Croydon Hill Woods

Hare on the gravestone of Mr William Steuart Hare in the churchyard of St Michael & All Angels Church in Stawley

Boxing hares at Steart Marshes

Hares' Moon mural, Hill Head, Glastonbury

Rather worn wooden sculptures of a rabbit and a badger at Splash Point, Watchet

Rabbit roundel at Splash Point, Watchet

Badger at the bus stop in Higher Road, Woolavington

Badger, Forefront Community Centre & Church, Fore Street, Chard

Rabbit, Forefront Community Centre & Church, Fore Street, Chard

Victoria Park, Frome

This animal themed bench, which features three bats and three badgers, was made from a 140 year old Norway maple, which had to be felled in 2025 because it was diseased.  The bench was made by Graham Derham.

Bats and badgers, Victoria Park, Frome

Mary Bridge's Sword

11 or 12 year old Mary Bridge was living with her family in Westonzoyland in July 1685 at the time of the defeat of the Duke of Monmouth at the Battle of Sedgemoor.  After the battle a Royalist officer was billeted with them.  When he attempted to rape her mother, Mary drew the soldier's sword and killed him with it by stabbing him in the heart.  She was tried in front of Colonel Kirke but was acquitted.  He gave her the sword to keep and it was handed down the generations before being given to the Museum of Somerset.

Mary Bridge's Sword on display at the Museum of Somerset

Conjoined twins - Priscilla & Aquila Herring and the Fair Maids of Foscott

On 19th May 1680 Mrs Herring, the wife of a farm labourer in Isle Brewers, gave birth to conjoined twins.  They were joined together back to back from their nipples to their navels (xiphopagus) but were otherwise healthy.  

 On 29th May 1680 the twins were baptised by the Reverend Andrew Paschall, who was the vicar of Chedzoy and they were named Priscilla and Aquila.  The vicar was superstitious and considered the twins' birth to be a sign of impending evil: he thought he had been proved right when the Duke of Monmouth invaded England in 1685. 

Later in 1680 a man in the Taunton area wrote a pamphlet or 'broadside' about the birth of the twins.  This was printed and sold in London.  Hundreds of people visited Isle Brewers to see Priscilla and Aquila.  A commemorative plate made of yellow glazed red pitcher clay and decorated using the sgraffito technique was produced, probably in Crock Street, Ilminster.  The plate was probably sold to some of the people who visited the twins.  One of the plates can be seen on display in the Rebellion section of the Museum of Somerset in Taunton.

Commemorative plate on display in the Museum of Somerset

Henry Walrond lived at Walrond Hall near Isle Brewers and was a local Justice of the Peace.  He persecuted the local Quakers but was in financial difficulties.  Together with Sir Edward Phelips of Montacute House he abducted Priscilla and Aquila from their parents, so he could make money for himself by exhibiting them.  The twins probably died in about 1683. It is not known whether they died of natural causes or mistreatment.

Conjoined twins known as the Fair Maids of Foscott are commemorated in the Church of St Philip and St James in Norton St Philip.  They were apparently born (the date is unknown) in the hamlet of Foscott/Foscote (now called Foxcote).  They had two heads but only one pair of legs (dicephalus).  They lived into adulthood but nothing else is known about them.  In 1668 Samuel Pepys visited the church in Norton St Philip and commented on the tombstone of the twins.

Stone effigies of the Fair Maids of Foscott in the church at Norton St Philip with the quotation from Samuel Pepys' Diary underneath

Plague victims in East Coker

Between June and September 1645 seventy villagers in East Coker, including Archdeacon Helyar and the Vicar, died of plague. They were buried in a communal grave just outside the churchyard in East Coker.  In 2003 a gravestone was erected in their memory.

Memorial to the plague victims of East Coker

Plague burial site and memorial

Burrow Mump

Burrow Mump is a natural hill of Mercia Mudstone, which rises dramatically from the flat landscape of the Somerset Moors at Burrowbridge, although it is only 24 metres higher than the surrounding land.  It has a flat top, below which the sides have been steeply scarped for about 7 metres. The lower slopes of the hill are natural.   

Burrow Mump is located at a strategic point where the River Tone and the old course of the River Cary join the River Parrett. According to local legend, King Alfred used the hill as a defensive position against the Danes, but there is no evidence that this was true.  It may also have been the site of a Norman motte and bailey castle.  It was owned by Athelney Abbey from around 937 AD.

In medieval times a chapel dedicated to St Michael was built on top of Burrow Mump.  It was rebuilt several times and was still standing in the mid-17th century.  During the English Civil War, Royalist troops occupied Burrow Mump in 1642 and for three days in 1645, after losing the Battle of Langport.  By the mid-18th century the chapel was in ruins and in 1793 rebuilding commenced, but the church was never completed.  The church is built of lias with Ham stone and red brick dressings.  In 1836-8 a church (also dedicated to St Michael) was built at the foot of the hill in the village of Burrowbridge instead.

Burrow Mump and the unfinished church were given to the National Trust by Major Alexander Gould Barrett in 1946, as a memorial to the Somerset men and women who lost their lives during the Second World War.  There is a small car park located just off the A361 to the east of Burrow Mump.

St Michael's Church

St Michael's Church

Inside St Michael's Church

St Michael's Church

View across the Levels from St Michael's Church

War memorial plaque

Burrow Mump at sunset

Burrow Mump just after sunset

Burrow Mump in the twilight

The Shambles, Shepton Mallet

Shamble is a medieval term for "a table or stall for the sale of meat" (Oxford English Dictionary).  The word comes from the Latin word scamellum, meaning "bench".  In the 14th and 15th centuries most country towns would have had shambles.  The most famous Shambles are in York: this was where the city's butchers lived and sold their meat in the Middle Ages.  When open markets declined, as shops became more common in the 19th century, the shambles in almost all towns were dismantled. 

At the east end of the Market Place in Shepton Mallet stands a restored and re-erected bay of the town's 15th century shambles.  They are made of oak and have a pantiled roof.  The shambles originally stood along the north and south sides of the market place and were separated from the adjacent houses by a 10-15 feet wide gangway.  The shambles on the south side were demolished in the early 19th century but those on the north side survived until 1919.  

Shambles in Shepton Mallet Market Place

Brean Down Fort

Brean Down is a headland, which juts out into the Bristol Channel at the eastern end of Bridgwater Bay.  It is composed of carboniferous limestone and is a continuation of the Mendip Hills (as are the islands of Steep Holm and Flat Holm).  The highest point on Brean Down is 97 metres above sea level and this is marked by a trig point. The name Brean probably comes from the Ancient British word briga, meaning hill.

Brean Down has been occupied for different purposes for thousands of years:

•  Neolithic people lived and farmed there.
•  Bronze Age people lived, farmed and buried their dead on it.
•  A hillfort was built on it by Iron Age people.
•  A temple and a settlement were built on it in Roman times.
•  In the post Roman period people buried their dead in a cemetery on it.
•  From the 14th to the 18th centuries it was managed as a rabbit warren.
•  In Victorian times a fort was built at the western end and work on a harbour was started in 1864 but never completed.
•  It was fortified during the Second World War.

In the 1850s concern grew in Britain about the strength of the French Navy and it was believed that war between France and Britain might be imminent.  Henry John Temple, 3^rd Viscount Palmerston, became Prime Minister for the 2^nd time in 1859. Palmerston and his Secretary of State for War (Sidney Herbert) established a Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom in 1859 to examine the ability of Britain to defend itself against an attempted invasion by a foreign power and to advise the British Government on the remedial action required. 

The Commission reported back in 1860 and recommended the building of forts to protect naval bases and other strategic locations around the coasts of Britain and Ireland.  In the Bristol Channel Brean Down, Steep Holm, Flat Holm and Lavernock Point were to be fortified in order to protect the ports of Bristol, Avonmouth, Cardiff and Newport.

In 1862 four acres of land at the western end of Brean Down were requisitioned from the Wyndham family, who had owned it since the 17th century when they bought it from Glastonbury Abbey.  In 1864 Lieutenant Robert Vetch was given the task of constructing the Bristol Channel forts.  Brean Down Fort was completed by 1870 but was not equipped with artillery straightaway.  It was partially concealed on the seaward side and the landward side was protected by a dry moat.  By 1872 a garrison of 51 soldiers were living there.  Seven 7" cannons were installed by the late 1870s.  These were located in three batteries:

•  West Battery - this had 3 cannons and 2 underground magazines
•  North West Battery - this had 3 cannons and 2 underground magazines
•  North East Battery - this had 1 cannon and a magazine

There were also barracks, a guard house, a master-gunner's quarters and an officers' mess.  

Both Viscount Palmerston and Sidney Herbert died before work began on Brean Down Fort. By the time the fortifications were completed, the threat from the French had diminished. The island’s heavy guns were never fired in anger.  

In July 1900 a soldier called William Haines fired his rifle into one of the West Battery's magazines, in an apparent attempt to kill himself, and it exploded and destroyed the battery.  After the explosion the fort was decommissioned and the guns were sold for scrap in 1901. In 1909 Brean Down Fort was handed back to the Wyndham family.   

In 1910 part of the fort was converted into a café , which was run by Mr R. Waterman.  The fort was not used during the First World War.  In the early 1920s the Wyndham's leased the fort to Joseph Chamberlain, who opened it as a café, which was run by Alfred Meredith and his wife. Many visitors arrived via the Uphill Ferry or on boats from Anchor Head or Knightstone Harbour in Weston-super-Mare.  The Merediths closed the café in 1936.

Brean Down Fort was refortified in 1941-42.  Two gun positions were built: one on the site of the ruined West Battery and the other over part of the North West Battery.  They were armed with 6" ex-naval guns.  

Two Coastal Artillery Searchlight posts were built - one on the western tip of Brean Down and the other on the cliff top to the south of the fort.  These were made of reinforced concrete and were covered with camouflage paint. The searchlights were protected by armoured steel shutters.  They could scan the sea for enemy ships at radius of two miles.

The Victorian barracks were reused as a canteen and leisure room, but the windows were partly blocked to give protection from blasts.  The officers were accommodated in the former Master-Gunner's quarters.  12 Nissen huts were built in the old quarry on the east side of the Victorian fort and used as barracks.  

A battery of 6 Lewis guns was built on the north side of Brean Down, close to the Iron Age hillfort.

During the Second World War experimental weapons were tested at the fort by scientists from the Admiralty Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development, who were based at HMS Birnbeck. The short length of launching rail, which can still be seen, is evidence of these trials.  This was used to launch a 'bouncing bomb'.

At the end of 1943 Brean Down Fort was downgraded to "care and maintenance" and the guns were removed in 1945 and the land was returned to the ownership of the Wyndham Trust.

Axbridge Rural District Council bought most of Brean Down (except the fort) from the Wyndham Trust in 1954 and then gave it (147.5 acres) to the National Trust. Weston-super-Mare Borough Council bought the fort from the Wyndham Trust and they considered various future uses for the fort e.g. a casino or a centre for youth activities but all were rejected. In 1958-9 parts of the fort were dismantled and the rest of it was cleared of miscellaneous debris and undergrowth by groups of volunteers. In 1973 Weston-super-Mare Borough Council offered the fort to the National Trust but they wouldn't accept it because they didn't want to pay for its repair and maintenance, so they sold it to Axbridge Rural District Council for a nominal fee.  

 In 1977 the army were brought in to blow up the roofs of the two Second World War gun emplacements, as they were in a dangerous condition.  In 1983 a Manpower Services Commission team were employed to make the fort buildings safe. 

Various councils and organisations produced reports and plans for the future conservation and development of the fort over the years.  Between 1994 and 1997, Sedgemoor District Council (the successor council to Axbridge Rural District), the National Trust and English Heritage worked together on an application for a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to restore the fort and convert the buildings into a museum, holiday accommodation a café and a shop, but the National Trust withdrew their support at the last minute and the application was rejected in March 1998.

In December 1998 the National Trust submitted their own application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a grant of £350,000 to pay for the repair and stabilisation of the fort.  They were told in August 1999 that their application was successful.  In 2000 3.4 acres at Brean Down Cove were acquired by the National Trust from MD & M Matthews.  In 2002, following renovation work, Sedgemoor District Council gave Brean Down Fort to the National Trust.

Further reading:

Brean Down Fort: Its History and the Defence of the Bristol Channel by Nicholas van der Bijl, Hawk Editions, 2000

The south coast of Brean Down

Looking west down Brean Down

Trig point on Brean Down - looking north east across Weston Bay towards Worlebury Hill

Brean Down Fort

Victorian gun battery and entrance to one of the underground magazines

Second World War searchlight position at the west end of Brean Down

Second World War searchlight position and launching rail for experimental weapons

Searchlight position, Brean Down

Gun emplacement, Brean Down Fort

Inside the Victorian barrack room

This room was built to house 20 men, but for most of the time it was in use only 4 or 5 gunners lived there.  They had folding beds, which when folded up could be used as chairs.

Second World War Battery Command Post

World War Two Battery Command Post

Brean Down Fort

Brean Down Fort with the site of the Second World War barracks below it

Six Lewis gun emplacements on the north coast of the eastern end of Brean Down overlooking Weston Bay

These were possibly used for training purposes.

The South coast of Brean Down

Master Gunner's Quarters

This building was originally divided into 4 large rooms.  In 1881 it was occupied by Master Gunner John Bond.  His wife and children lived there with him.   During the Second World War when the building was used as an officers' mess, it was probably divided into 9 rooms.

Second World War searchlight position on the west end of Brean Down

Steep Holm can be seen in the distance.

Dry moat

Brean Down Fort is on the left hand side of the photo