I have not reproduced the book in its entirety, but the following pages will allow you to get an idea of life in our village as it is today and how it was over the past 100 years. You can learn more about Monkton Combe from the other sections on this site.  

Page 1 - 3
General description
"The rolling hills of Somerset present continual surprises. Neither high nor dramatic, they are folds created by the streams that twist and turn to feed into the River Avon." .....

"The parish, stretching some considerable distance farther than can be seen from the welcome seat with its delightful views, also includes feats of engineering - an aqueduct and two viaducts - hotels, small businesses, numerous sports facilities, woods, fields and watercourses." .....

"This eastern gateway faces a small but interesting group of houses across the road. One of them was once a coaching inn, the Brassknocker, a welcome respite for dray horses and wagons which had toiled up the steep hill, the clinking of the brasses on the harnesses giving the inn and hill their name." ......

"Tucking Mill ........ here there was once a thriving fuller's earth works, but it is now a wholly peaceful scene. A lake, beneath a towering railway viaduct now unused, is reserved for the sole use of disabled fishermen, and only birdsong supplements its peace."  .....

"This entire area is rich in souvenirs of the past. Over the viaduct and beyond the brook ran the Somerset and Dorset railway - known locally as the Slow and Dirty - which superseded the Somerset Coal Canal. Both are now no more than nostalgic gleams in the eye of the industrial archaeologist." 

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Pages 4 - 6
100 years ago
"Children could be seen playing with their hoops, tops or skipping ropes, or gather by the old lock-up or in the brewery yard for a serious game of marbles or conkers."

"The beauty of the area is the feature most remembered by those who had the inclination to write and the freedom to roam across fields and woodland, fish or bathe in the brook, or to enjoy the sight of orchards in blossom. These features have left many nostalgic testimonies."

"No car or bicycle however, is recorded as having been seen in the village at that time. Such traffic as came was horse-drawn - the post office van, Mr. Morris's bakery van from Freshford,.......in a dire emergency and the doctor was to be sent for he would ride out from Bath on horseback."

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Pages 7 - 9
50 years ago
"Fame came to the village when Ealing Studios decided to make a film about a country railway called The Titfield Thunderbolt, which is a classic and can be seen on video. It shows the station and surrounding countryside before it was swamped under an all weather sports pitch. The star of the show cruised round the village in a pink Cadillac - much to everyone's delight - and many of the village people had bit parts in the film."

"Houses were very cold in winter and Jack Frost would weave a lovely pattern on the windows to be revealed in all its glory when the curtains were pulled back in the mornings."

"Fruit was bottled, beans were salted and food was kept in large well-ventilated larders. The whole family sat down to meals together. Together they listened to the wireless, whilst mother darned socks and father smoked. Food rationing did not stop until 1952/3, but groceries were delivered. Petrol rationing stopped in 1950."

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Page 10
Ralph Allen School
"In setting great store in pupils fulfilling their true potential in all aspects of their academic and social lives, links have been made with the local business community and Ralph Allen School runs an annual science fair which is visited by representative from local business and industry."

Page 11
Village School
"The Village National School had been opened in 1865 to cater for 72 boys and girls, between the ages of 5 - 11 years."

Page 12
Monkton Combe School
"From its humble beginnings, the school is now a superbly equipped centre for education, embracing a wide curriculum and a range of musical, dramatic and sporting activities."

Page 13
Church of St. Michael and All Angels
"The earliest church building of which we have any record, dates from Norman times and the nearby dovecote gives evidence of living quarters for the monks who came from the Abbey to supervise and work in their domain, with the church as their chapel."

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Page 14
Village Hall
"The Millennium year itself has been marked by the generous gift by the School of a portion of the adjacent field, to be managed by the Hall on behalf of the Parish, which will allow some expansion space for some of the out-door functions, and the Committee also organised a free celebration for all the village, with wine and cheese and an excellent Irish group playing, which must have included at least a third of those on the electoral roll, and filled the Hall to over-capacity with joyful revellers."

Page 15
Wheelwrights Arms
"At lunchtimes local customers come from the nearby offices and in the evenings, masters from the school welcome an escape to its more relaxed surroundings. Apart from the innkeepers it has another resident called Albert, a poltergeist who frequently causes unexplained disturbances on the premises."

Page 16
Viaduct Inn
"In the days when it was owned by Ushers of Trowbridge, past bar staff remember coach parties, which on the way back from the coast would stop for meals, and another parishioner recalls dances being held there on Saturday nights."

Page 17
Monkton Combe Mill 
"The Monkton Combe mill was by the station and in the early 1900's was well placed to import its rather insalubrious raw material, old clothes from the rag and bone trade and old uniforms from Holland, to turn into flock for use in the upholstery trade." 

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Page 18
Tucking Mill
"The name of this hamlet is obviously taken from a process in the woollen industry known as "tucking" or "fulling", in which woven cloth was hammered and felted with water-driven 'stocks'. "

Page 19
Combe Grove Manor
"Among others, the actor/composer Ivor Novello and his mother maintained an apartment.....Rex Harrison with his wife Kaye Kendall, were one time guests."

Page 20
Brassknocker Boat Basin
"In 1985 restoration began on the first quarter mile section of the Somerset Coal Canal from its junction with the Kennet and Avon at Dundas Aqueduct.......Two entrepreneurs, Mr. Hedley Smith and Mr. Tim Wheeldon, seeing the potential it presented for a marina and boat business, formed the new Somerset Coal Canal Company. They acquired the land and dug out and relined the old canal bed." 

Page 21 - 23
Reminiscences of Stan Wicks (early 1900's)
"Tucking Mill was indeed a fairyland to be born into. The brook burbled contentedly past the bottom of the garden.....The medley of sound created on a stormy night, with an express leaving the station and attacking the gradient was an orchestration of magic....The water had to be carried from the spring. There were no services other than the telephone to Tucking Mill House. Illumination was by oil lamps and candles. Heating and cooking was done by coal fire."

"There were no radios or televisions in those days and people made their own entertainment.....The girls of Tucking Mill were always swinging their skipping ropes and marking squares in the road to play hopscotch. The boys were more inclined to be destructive and tried out bows and arrows."

"Across the brook .... were riches indeed in summer. Bird nests, primroses, bluebells and wild asparagus among the wood and on the side near Hamlen's field was a walnut tree and a crab-apple that had to be visited."

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Page 24
Norma Reeve - wartime evacuee
We bathed in a deep bath full of warm water that flowed effortlessly from a tap. Running water! It was awe-inspiring. At home we kept our tin bath in the yard and filled it laboriously from kettles.

Page 25 - 28
Reminiscences of Terry Love (1940's/1950's)
"I remember it was sunny, my mother pushing a pram loaded with odds and ends that she and my grandmother had salvaged from the rubble....I learned since, that they had no idea where they were going. Anywhere out of the city, away from the bombs." 

"As D-Day approached, the transit camps in the surrounding counties became packed with Allied troops....Hershey bars and gum, a kid only had to wave to a passing jeep to be showered with the stuff. I often wonder how many of those happy-go-lucky men made it out of the bloodbath of Omaha Beach." 

"At one end of the room was a big pot belly stove and the older kids took turns to light it before class and keep the big coke bucket filled during the day. Even now I can smell the warm gassy odour of that stove."

"As with most kids' crimes in those days, punishment was immediate in the form of the boiler stick applied to my not overly-fleshed rear end. It was painful, but I was held in some esteem by the rest of the gang for refusing to name my accomplices."

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Page 29
Mines and Quarries
"But it was Ralph Allen in the 18th century who saw the true potential of the stone and he bought up local land, exploiting it to quarry stone which was used in most of Georgian Bath as well as Windsor, Buckingham Palace, Brighton Pavilion and in building abroad, especially the Commonwealth. Today the Royal Crescent Hotel is using it in the extension to its mews."

Page 30
Railways
"For the next two years life must have been exciting for the people of Monkton, as steam shovels and labourers tore the ground apart to build this new line. It was one of the last and shortest lived projects of this type and its days were over by 1925."

"The line was to have perhaps its only moment of glory in 1952 when it briefly came to life again as the location for the film Titfield Thunderbolt. An Ealing Films comedy, still regularly shown on Bank Holiday TV and providing a chance for locals to see the Cam valley as it was in the 1950's." 

Page 31
Women's Institute
"We were proud when one of our members, Gwen Garner, was commissioned by the National Federation to write the history of the WI and the book "Extra Ordinary Women" was published in 1995. The Millennium also saw the 75th anniversary of our Institute."

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