Ron Blundell - Bridgwater

This page is made up of images taken by me as part of a visit to Bridgwater Somerset with the Minehead U3A photography group in July 2024.

Camera's used - Lumix FZ82 and iPhone SE.

LR was used in post production to remove some objects such as cars. Whilst it could be argued (as I have in the past that the image does not then accurately record a location in space and time with all its recordable data) the aim is to remove the variable objects but preserve the essential feel of the location.

Top deck parking area of Angel Place car park.( £2.00 for three hours)

Interesting Youtube video on Bridgwater street names.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv2JBH106nU&pp=ygUac3RyZWV0IG5hbWVzIG9mIGJyaWRnd2F0ZXI%3D

The two images below are of the starting and end points the Nutmeg House cafe/restaurant.

The layout of the tables outside with the courtesy of the wonderful weather give Bridgwater a continental feel?

Using LR one person (not a group member) was successfully removed from the chair on the LHS.

A close up of one of the tables. Unfortunately the top of the table cloth is burnt out but hopefully does not detract too much from the overall atmosphere?

The hollow Bronze, statue was made by F. W. Pomeroy at a cost of £1,200. It was unveiled in 1900.

Robert Blake (27 September 1598 – 7 August 1657) was an English naval officer who served as general at sea and the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports from 1656 to 1657. Blake served under Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War and Anglo-Spanish War, and as the commanding Admiral of the State's Navy during the First Anglo-Dutch War. Blake is recognised as the "chief founder of England's naval supremacy", a dominance subsequently inherited by the British Royal Navy well into the early 20th century. Despite this, due to deliberate attempts to expunge the Parliamentarians from historical records following the Stuart Restoration, Blake's achievements tend to remain relatively unrecognised.

I remember the statue in a different position in front of the Corn Exchange which in my opinion was far better?

Comment: Loss of focus on the face - lesson learnt.

Mobile trader blocking the view of Blakes statue - trade over heritage?

Offset line of building focuses on subject?

The Corn Exchange

As early as the 14th century, there was a shambles for the sale of farm products on Cornhill. In the late 18th century, local merchants decided to commission a purpose-built "corn market": this was a rectangular structure built in brick and completed in 1791.

After the north and south sides of the corn market were demolished to facilitate road widening in 1825, the building was remodelled, to a design by John Bowen in the neoclassical style, and encased in ashlar stone in 1834.

"Jubilee meets Iconic"

Image hopefuly tells a story of changing technology, artitechture and current use of part of the building.

Red Telephone box.

In 1935 the K6 (kiosk number six) was designed to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of George V. It was consequently sometimes known as the "Jubilee" kiosk. It went into production in 1936.The K6 was the first red telephone kiosk to be extensively used outside London, and many thousands were deployed in virtually every town and city, replacing most of the existing kiosks and establishing thousands of new sites. In 1935 there had been 19,000 public telephones in the UK: by 1940, thanks to the K6, there were 35,000.

Iconic column.

The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian.

A different view of the "K6" and Iconic column.

The image gives an impression of change and neglect with the shrub sprouting out of the wall?

Also a feel of transience with the telephone box likely reaching the end of its life against the hopefully permanence of the Corn Exchange listed building.

The following images are of the Bridgwater telephone exchange where for a year in 1979 I worked as an Assistant Executive Engineer responsible for staff maintaining the exchanges and customers equipment in the Bridgwater area. (Roughly the area covered by the old Sedgemoor District Council area.)

BT as a company has had many thousand of exchange' s across the UK and around

the world. With the advent of digital communication the need for large buildings with co-located staff has changed.

The stock of current buildings is being neglected waiting for other uses or demolition as their need draws to a close.

THE PICTURE ABOVE DRAWS ATTENTION TO ONE "BRANCH" IN THIS ONCE VITAL NETWORK. :-)

Through this door in the days of the analogue telephone system passed generations of engineers and operators, as with other trades and professions most of these relatively well paid jobs were lost due to developing technology and digitalisation.

The design of the external lights are interesting and of value?

Gate to the RHS of the telephone exchange - a tight squeeze for some vehicles.

Windows of the telephone exchange to the right of the main entrance.

The centre panes on the bottom of the two outer windows have small louvers to vent air outwards. Old electromechanical telephone switching equipment needed a clean environment and to prevent dust and dirt from entering the building air ventilation maintained a slight positive pressure in the building.

Interesting royal cypher and the date 1935 above the centre window.

https://bridgwaterheritage.com/wp/people/utilities/telephone-exchange/

In 1979 I took over as the Assistant Executive Engineer responsible for managing a team of technicians and Technical Officers who maintained the exchanges and subs (Customer equipment) in the Bridgwater area as below:

https://telephone-exchanges.org.uk/exchanges/bridgwater-exchanges/

A year later I transferred to a similar role covering Taunton and West Somerset.

21st Century Grafiti in george Street

Bridge over the river parrott. The date 1744 on the building may refer to Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater (11 August 1681 – 11 January 1744)

For me the waterfront has a Dutch feel?

The river parrett.

The River Parrett flows through the counties of Dorset and Somerset in South West England, from its source in the Thorney Mills springs in the hills around Chedington in Dorset. Flowing northwest through Somerset and the Somerset Levels to its mouth at Burnham-on-Sea, into the Bridgwater Bay nature reserve on the Bristol Channel, the Parrett and its tributaries drain an area of 660 square miles (1,700 km2) – about 50 per cent of Somerset's land area, with a population of 300,000.

The Parrett's main tributaries include the Rivers Tone, Isle, and Yeo, and the River Cary via the King's Sedgemoor Drain. The 37-mile (60 km) long river is tidal for 19 miles (31 km) up to Oath. The fall of the river between Langport and Bridgwater is only 1 foot per mile (0.2 m/km), so it is prone to frequent flooding in winter and during high tides. Many approaches have been tried since at least the medieval period to reduce the incidence and effect of floods and to drain the surrounding fields.

View of West Quay from the bridge.

Two images of the crane on West quay.

The lions house

The Lions House on West Quay in Bridgwater, Somerset, England was built around 1725 and has been designated as a Grade I listed building.

It was built between 1720 and 1730 in a Baroque style by Benjamin Holloway, as his house and was later occupied by several Mayors of Bridgwater. Holloway was employed by the Duke of Chandos to build and possibly design the houses in nearby Castle Street.

Sundial close to bridge - a building in the background was edited out using LR.

Pillar and sundial at Bridgwater, Somerset. Details of this pillar, erected in 1989, with a sundial and stone ball finial, are at http://pmsa.cch.kcl.ac.uk/BLM/SO20.htm (THIS IS A BROKEN LINK). This mentions a copper cross on the top, which seems to have vanished, and says that the work replaces "an old market cross, possibly the old Pig Cross, that used to stand near the present situation".

The following three images were taken in Kings square.

The site of King Square was previously occupied by Bridgwater Castle. It was laid out with large Georgian houses between 1770 and 1800.

During the later part of the 17th century John Harvey developed the site of the castle. In 1721 the remains of the castle, the house and the land was sold to James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos who developed an industrial centre in the town and demolished the last of the buildings. Much of the site was built on in the 1720s to create the Georgian Castle Street. In 1734 Chandos sold the whole of the redevelopment area to Thomas Watts, who sold it the following year to John Anderton, whose descendants continued to clear old buildings and construct new ones. King Square was built between 1807 and 1814, with many of the buildings incorporating stone from the old castle, although further study would be needed to say how much of their cellars and foundations are in situ castle walls. In 2008, during sewer renovation work, a section of the curtain wall of the castle and a tunnel used to transport goods from the port were discovered.

Bridgwater War Memorial is a Grade II* listed war memorial located on King Square in Bridgwater, Somerset, England, on the site previously occupied by Bridgwater Castle. It was designed by John Angel in the mid-1920s. The green figure of the memorial is allegorical, representing "Civilisation as a seated female, holding a globe in one hand and with the book of knowledge on her lap.

Description

John Angel sculpted the Angel of Bridgwater. Mounted on a plinth, a female figure of 'Civilisation' lofts the world, which is encircled by emblems of commerce and peace. Under her foot are the "demons of war." The throne and figure are backed by "relief depictions of Labour, Home, Life and Education. On her lap is a book of laws, and she is surrounded by children. Indeed, given its monumental breadth, the many details in the design, and its metaphorical and iconic form, the sculpture is subject to colourful and variant interpretations and description. The bronze was cast by W Morris Art Bronze Foundry

Castle street.

A Bridgwater window.

Houses built 1726-1728.

Utility against Georgian?

The following five images are of St Mary's Church.

Parish Church of St Mary, more commonly known as St Mary's, is the main Church of England parish church for the town of Bridgwater, Somerset. Originally founded well before the Norman Conquest, the present church is a large and imposing structure dating primarily from the 14th and 15th centuries, with both earlier remains and later additions. The church is notable for its Gothic architecture, large stained glass windows, and unusually tall spire, a rarity in Somerset, a county known for its tall and elaborate church towers. With a height of 174 feet (53 m), it is the tallest medieval spire in the county.

The following three images are from the one original image post produced in LR to experiment with different styles.

I was attracted by the large expanse of brick wall. A modern street sign was edited out to try to produce a timeless image,

THE DOCKS

These images were taken a week later than the groups images of the same location. After a week of warm and sunny weather there is a significant alga bloom in the docks water.

A floating harbour, known as the "docks" was constructed between 1837–1841, when the canal was extended through Bridgwater to the floating harbour.

d

Derelict animal Food store

This magnificent Victorian mill stands proudly before the Bridgwater Dock. The factory was built in about the 1860s and was initially called the ‘Bridgwater Oil and Cake Mills’, or was known by the names of its owners, ‘Messrs Croad and Brown’. The 1897 trade directory records ‘Croad & Brown (Edwin Brown, managing director)’, as ‘linseed and cotton oil manufacturers & seed crushers, oil cake manufactures &c’ whose ‘registered office and works’ were ‘The Docks’. Linseed oil was used for oil paints or as a wood preservative, and oil cake was produced as livestock fodder in the late 19th century. In its brief introduction to Bridgwater town, the 1897 directory describes its many ‘breweries, maltings, iron foundries and a large mill’—likely this building—‘for the making of oil cake and cotton cake, from seed imported direct from the Black and Baltic seas.’ Located on the Docks, the mill was linked to the River Parrett, and to the Bridgwater and Taunton canal, and a train formerly crossed the bridge to the south to terminate directly before the mill — all of which allowed for the easy import and export of goods.

As a result of a fire in 1892, Croad and Brown commissioned Basil Cottam to redesign the mill, and in 1899 they requested designs for new offices. In 1899, Croad and Brown’s company was taken over by the British Oils and Cake Mill Ltd. By 1960, the factory was occupied by Bowerings Animal Feeds, which continued to operate on the site until a fire in 2019 forced them to close.

With its tall harlequin chimney—described as ‘the last industrial chimney in Bridgwater’ by the Bridgewater Westover ward—the mill is a local landmark, and is recognised as a Non-Designated Heritage Asset, located within a Conservation Area. A request was made for its listing but this was turned down.

Up the cut

The Bridgwater and Taunton Canal is a canal in the south-west of England between Bridgwater and Taunton, opened in 1827 and linking the River Tone to the River Parrett. There were a number of abortive schemes to link the Bristol Channel to the English Channel by waterway in the 18th and early 19th centuries. These schemes followed the approximate route eventually taken by the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal, but the canal was instead built as part of a plan to link Bristol to Taunton by waterway.

The early years of operation were marred by a series of legal disputes, which were resolved when the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal Company and the Conservators, who managed the River Tone Navigation, agreed that the Canal Company should take over the Tone Navigation. The canal originally terminated at a basin at Huntworth, to the east of Bridgwater, but was later extended to a floating harbour at Bridgwater Docks on its western edge. Financially this was a disaster, as the extension was funded by a mortgage, and the arrival of the railways soon afterwards started the demise of the canal. The canal was rescued from bankruptcy by the Bristol and Exeter Railway in 1866.

Despite commercial traffic ceasing in 1907, the infrastructure was maintained in good order, and the canal was used for the transport of potable water from 1962. The Countryside Act 1968 provided a framework for Somerset County Council to start the restoration of the canal as a leisure facility, which was completed in 1994, when the canal was reopened throughout. Bridgwater Docks have been restored as a marina, but there is no navigable connection to the River Parrett, as the canal still transports drinking water for the people of Bridgwater.

Boats, bricks and birds.

Bridgwater was the leading industrial town in Somerset and remains a major centre for manufacturing. A major manufacturing centre for clay tiles and bricks in the 19th century, including the famous "Bath brick", were exported through the port. In the 1890s there were a total of 16 brick and tile companies, and 24 million bricks per annum were exported during that decade alone.These industries are celebrated in the Somerset Brick and Tile Museum on East Quay.

Last one's standing?

Ratchet.

Buoy.

The Bridgwater Buoy has an interesting history. Originally located in Bridgwater Bay on the River Parrett over 60 years ago. The buoy helped cargo vessels to navigate the river on their journeys carrying trade to and from Bridgwater town. When the Bridgwater Docks were built in 1841, thousands of people lined the docksides and the day was declared a bank holiday. Here, goods were loaded into barges on the Bridgwater & Taunton Canal. In 1907 commercial traffic ceased and the docks ceased operation and the Bridgwater Buoy became a long forgotten memory. Around 60 years ago the Bridgwater Buoy and another historic navigation buoy were rescued from the deep silt where they had rested for many years. The Bridgwater Buoy was placed at the side of The Docks over time becoming neglected and in need of careful restoration.