Minehead
Minehead photos (161 available)
Minehead maps (2 available)
Map of Somerset
Beautifully hand-drawn and coloured, dating from around 1840
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Minehead books (7 available)
Minehead memories
Read and share memories of Minehead and Somerset inspired by Frith photos
My childhood in Minehead
My auntie Mary used to run the donkeys on the beach. I spent each school holiday in Minehead Swimming Pool and remember the Juke Box in the cafeteria area very well. When I first moved to Minehead in 1953 I lived in the old Gasworks Cottage right on the front down past the harbour. I would be very interested if anyone has a photo of the Old Gasworks before it was demolished in the late fifties early sixties ? I had 10 aunts and uncles in the Webber family , most of whom have passed on now, and several uncles worked voluntarily on the Minehead Lifeboat, with Uncle Alf being coxswain for a number of years and uncles Jack and ...read more here
Contributed by Barry Johns
NAN'S CHRISTENING
MY GREAT GRANDPARENTS THOMAS AND LOUISA SPARKES AND THEIR CHILDREN MOVED FROM MINEHEAD TO CARDIFF.
THEIR YOUNGEST CHILD HILDA WHO WAS MY GRANDMOTHER TOLD STORIES TO MY MOTHER AND ONE OF THEM BEING THAT SHE COULD REMEMBER RUNNING UP THE CHURCH STEPS TO HER CHRISTENING IN 1900 WHEN SHE WAS 4 YEARS OLD.
Contributed by KAY BAKER
School Carol Concert
This was where my mother and father were married in 1937.
I used to walk up to the Church with the whole of Minehead Grammar School for our annual Christmas Carol Service. Our lovely music teacher, Mr Langdon, used to play the organ and I can still hear the bass notes reverberating around the Church while we sang 'God is Love' in Latin.
Contributed by Hilary Moore
Church Town
In 1960 my home was just out of shot: next door to the house that is partly visible on the far right of the picture. I lived at number 18 Church Street, Church Street being the road that is accessed by turning right in the middle distance of the photo, at the bottom of Church Steps. The tree that can be seen towering above our neighbour’s house was a magnificent walnut tree, which is – sadly - no more. The cottage in the foreground (second from left) was our “corner" shop. It was my Saturday afternoon habit around that time to call in at the shop for a bar of chocolate, and also to post letters in ...read more here
Contributed by Pam Gotham
pony rides
We used to call this 'the donkey slip'. It was where the Webber family started their donkey and later pony rides.
My friend and I used to be in charge of the pony rides during the summer season sometime in the 50's.
We weren't paid but had the joy of riding the ponies bareback to their field on North Hill at the end of the day, after cleaning the tackle and putting it in the stables.
Contributed by Hilary Moore
wbardry@hotmail.com
P Aden :
I was at Butlins as well. (1962 - 1964)
I remember the big dipper thing; we used to call it The Mouse. I often went up on it.
I wonder what the camp is like now. Horrible dump, blasting out rap music probably.
Contributed by First name Last name
My time at the camp.
I was born in Minehead, and have also lived in Dunster, Williton, Timberscombe and Rodhuish, and attended all the schools. I worked in Butlins Holiday Camp at Minehead from 1962-1963.
This was the first full year that the Camp was opened. Most of the time I was working the rides in the amusement park. I helped build the Big Dipper, which was 70ft high, but is gone now. Some nights I sang on the stage under the name of Elvis the 2nd, singing mostly his and Cliff Richard songs. When I was at the camp there was three Dance Floors, One for Rock & Roll, another for ballroom dancing, which once held the Come Dancing competition for the BBC. And the ...read more here
Contributed by p aden
Extracts From Minehead & Somerset books
Redevelopment of the Parade started c1870. Lime
trees were planted in the 1880s to start the Avenue.
The buildings to the left of photograph 31223 had
just been built, replacing houses with walled gar-
dens. The building in the centre of the row, at the
end of Bancks Street, was all that remained of the
older buildings. Then a bank, it is now an estate
agents. The building protruding at the end of the
row, in Wellington Square, is now a bank. Capron’s,
the building on the far left, became a well-known
garage. It was Minehead’s first garage, established
in 1908. Two other garages were established before
the First World War but a petrol shortage during the
First World War meant horse drawn carriages and
bicycles remained popular until the 1920s.
An extract from from"Minehead Town and City Memories".
Today, all that remains of the Plume of Feathers is the
stableyard, now used as garages, which can be seen from
Tythings Court.
In the early 1900s the road was widened and the
market house and several buildings in the same row were
built to the designs of W J Tamlyn. The new market
house was built in a ‘neo-Baroque’ style. It is dated 1902
on the façade in front of the clock tower.
Most buildings in the Parade and Avenue are built
of local Triassic sandstone. This reddish stone is soft
compared with most local stones and can be most easily cut.
Much came from Staunton quarry at Alcombe. However,
it weathers easily and has become honeycombed in some
of the older buildings in town. Harder red Devonian
sandstones make up the hills around Minehead. This is
difficult to cut and forms rough ‘rubble’ building stone,
often used in outbuildings and garden walls. Some has
been used in houses; along North Road and the Quay,
large beach cobbles of the same stone have been split and
used for building.
An extract from from"Minehead Town and City Memories".
Jurassic ‘blue lias’ limestone. This has been used in some
of the older buildings around North Hill, including the
tower of St Michael’s church. Some red Triassic mudstone
from the Vale of Porlock was used during the 1930s
building boom, but proved too porous. In places it was
so soft it was worked for brick clay. The town had two
brickworks, the one on the Warren operating from 1750
to 1919 and one on the Porlock road operating from
1897 to 1947. They produced more than enough bricks
and tiles to supply the boom in building in Minehead
with the expansion of the tourist industry and there was
considerable export. The economic upheavals of the two
world wars subsequently put them out of business.
Bratton Water once continued as an open run from
what is now the Parade end of the Avenue across what
is now Blenheim Gardens to the sea. A track running
beside the stream was one of Minehead’s original
medieval streets. Originally called La Lane, it became
known as Water Lane. There was a pleasant walk by the
stream but it was liable to flooding and so was enclosed
in a culvert in the 1870s, only to continue to flood the
new streets above.
An extract from from"Minehead Town and City Memories".
This became the main park for Minehead in
1924 following private donations towards a
scheme for the conversion of 6 acres of meadows.
It was laid out as ‘winter gardens’ with flower
beds, where deck chairs could be hired. There
was a bandstand which was converted into
a café; later came a putting green. Another
bandstand survived, providing concerts and
dancing (old time and folk) in the 1950s
and 60s; it still provides a weekly concert in
summer. Alongside the gardens runs Blenheim
Road, Minehead’s first toll road, built in the
1760s to connect Lower Town to Quay Street.
In this street, Arthur C Clarke, writer of science
fact and fiction, was born.
An extract from from"Minehead Town and City Memories".
A promenade walk had been established along the street in the 1880s,
when some of the gardens were removed. Now, the level of the road
was raised to prevent flooding of the cottages on the far side. Hence,
they are now partly below road level, with a retaining wall in place to
buffer them from the floods which still arise from time to time. Most
of the doorways are still equipped with slots in which to insert boards
when there are flood warnings.
An extract from from"Minehead Town and City Memories".