Note the two pillars, the entrance to the first 'Methodist' Octagon Chapel following John Wesley's multiple open air preaching outside the village.
Credit Dom Lowe collection
After the 1968 flood.
Credit Dom Lowe collection.
Greenditch cottage entrance to the valley Cyril and Emily Eyles lived here. What a fabulous photo and memory jogger. These were the parents of Margaret Flower (nee. Eyles) and an all-present part of my own childhood. As children we knew them as "Paddy's Granny and Gramp", Paddy being the dog! We also applied "Squirrel" to his name. Most Saturdays they came to Pensford to help with the business and I visited this cottage on numerous occasions. There's far too much priceless stuff to type here but many thanks for posting some amazing images. Cyril was a soldier of the First WW. He never talked of his experience other than empathise with the poor horses he tended. As a lover of them before the war, it must have broken his heart to see them so abused.
Photo: Kim Gooding.
Photo: Jon Bush.
It's hard not to wax lyrical about these old photographs that allow us to travel back in time. Think what it would have been like if the Normans had brought cameras and tape-recorders with them in 1066! There has certainly been dramatic change and I'm not sure it's for the better - at least from that angle. One thinks of Blake's 'dark satanic mills', though he was thinking of different ones. This particular variety must have been a relative doddle. Marden Son and Hall owned it prior to Bristol Water Works, so at some stage it must have had a whole paper manufacturing process inside those masonry walls and under those attractive multi-level pan-tile roofs. To the right of the building, the heavy timber and metal structure to adjust the head-race flow to the two water wheels. The right hand side of Mill House was probably used as a cottage for mill workers but in my time was just a rather creepy tumble down store that I hesitated to enter. When Pensford was a chapel of Ease for Stanton Drew, I think it very likely that the house was the Curate's residence but I'm not sure about that. To the rear it seems to show the remnants of a glass house. Note the two fires burning in the whitewashed Guys Farm - three in fact!
The buildings on the left are a glimpse of probably the original 15th Century domestic houses (the three doors suggest at least three cottages) prior to the change of use to a metal shop. Note the poorly thatched roof and cantilevered first floor with dormer to the furthest one. This would have been an 'improvement' to provide additional light ahd height to the upper storey. Some of the windows appear to be unglazed. The nearest one appears to have a drop-down board over the window opening which was a feature of buildings facing the market street to display goods for sale. There is a suggestion of a pitched gable beyond the terrace. This may be the surviving one, if so it suggests the building line of the terrace projected further than the existing one. There is a large advert/name placard on the face of Bridge House. It would be interesting to know what it says. Also it very much appears the two first floor windows have been boarded up, maybe as a hangover from the window tax introduced in 1696 and repealed 155 years later, in 1851 only a few years before this photo image was taken..
That's true Pat. Prior to that my grandfather used it as his saddlery shop. However this photograph is from the mid-19th Century which pre-dates those occupants by around fifty years. This is the current sign Tim, I’m sure I have a better picture of the old one somewhere, I’ll try and dig it out for you
One of the most interesting aspects of this photo is that it shows the Church nave that pre-dates the existing one. Notice it is much lower and has a hip roof rather than the twin gables in the existing one. The original line of the roof can still be traced against the tower inside. The pillars inside suggest the nave was contemporary with the tower (13/14th C.) but this one was definitely later (probably 18th C.) so the existing nave is probably at least the third manifestation and now converted into an impressive secular domestic dwelling.
Photo Dom Lowe
Photo: Dom Lowe
Hard to date this one but definitely pre-mid 50's when a porch and other improvements were made to the then 'Maranatha'. Guessing late 30's, early 40's? There seems to be the shape of a cross on the west face of the tower but perhaps its just weathering? And the flag pole on the top in place of the cockerel added when? It's obviously winter when the meadow was very prone to flooding, some of which can be seen.
Pensford for some reason, holds a very special place in important national social and philosophical developments. I have plugged the role of John Locke, one of our earliest great philosophers and the Strachey family at nearby Sutton Court who over generations were very influential not to mention in more recent times the Rees Mogg family! Pensford as we have seen was a centre for 16th Century puritanism and non-conformism including Presbyterianism and Quakerism. Even St Thomas church appears to have leaned towards puritanism and given Locke's father's role in the civil war with Squire Popham's backing, supported the Parliamentary forces which also used Pensford as a billeting location. Another hundred years passed before Wesley came on the scene who seems to have regarded Pensford as a favourite location to preach to a decidedly mixed reception - on one occasion a bull was set loose on him! - and where a chapel was early established in what is now the Barton. I think the original gatepost can still be seen at its entrance. Of course Wesley was an ordained member of the Established Church of England and remained so, who nevertheless was rejected by it as a renegade. However some have suggested the reason England didn't follow France in bloody revolution was largely due to Wesley's and other's evangelical preaching
Rob Tivoli Atkins A search on the CoE site here http://db.theclergydatabase.org.uk/jsp/search/index.jsp
A reminder of the time when the village was invisibly divided by religious affiliation, not without its social connotations. The four were physically CoE, Wesleyan Methodist and Plymouth Brethren. As far as I know, there had never been a Roman Catholic church, unless of course one concedes that prior to Henry VIII's break with Rome (1533) all churches were RC and no other form of worship was allowed. Pensford up until the early 19th C. also boasted Quaker (Belluton) and Congregationalist (Whitley Batts) the latter now a house. My mother's sister was a Methodist and helped to keep the ailing Chapel going by, with her lodger, Mervyn - sadly recently passed away - playing the organ as he did elsewhere. Also of interest maybe is that Acker Bilk's father and (step) mother were active members, his father acting Minister and mother organist.
Roy Hattersley's 'Brand from the Burning' is a good read. https://www.theguardian.com/.../featuresreviews...
He and Locke were very different personalities and took different lines, but both remarkable and influential in their ways - both for good I believe.
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