Welcome to Camerton!

Published on behalf of Camerton Parish Council 1

A Potted History of Camerton

BY JULIEANN BIGGS

Camerton is a village with breath-taking scenery. It is near the Fosseway, an old Roman road that skirts the parish. Roman settlements are believed to have extended to Wellow on one side and to Temple Cloud on the other. Camerton is about 7 miles from Bath; its authentic history starts in Saxon times and can be traced for at least 1,000 years. Farming Camerton was a farming community. Many of the local farms would have been owned by the owners of the manor; the squire of the day would have leased the farms to local families. By law the farmers would have had to help support the up-keep of the local church, by paying the local rector a tithe, this was a form of tax; they had to pay a percentage of their income or produce to the local rector. It Preparing for the mower proved to be a very good income for the church but a great loss to the farmer. The tools were crude and work was hard until the early 1900s when there was an agriculture revolution. Improved horse drawn machinery and eventually steam tractors etc. were developed; this saved hard labour and helped farming become more efficient. When the Camerton Court estate was broken up and sold, it gave local farming families a chance to buy their farms. Courtesy of the 1925 Agricultural Gazette

St Peter’s Church

The Church is an object lesson in restoration and holds much that is ancient and interesting. It is believed the monks of St Peters Church Glastonbury built a chantry chapel near or around the north side of St Peter’s church in the late 1200s or early 1300s. A catholic priest would have sung or shouted a chantry (mass for the dead) or (obiit) Latin “he has departed”. Some rich landowners, guilds, societies or private donors endowed a chantry chapel with either lands, rents or by kind permission of Kathleen Dando assets, usually left in their will. The income would have maintained a priest to carry out chantry duties. The mass was for the founders’ well-being on earth and for their souls after their death. In 1547 chantries were abolished and their assets were sold to persons at the discretion of King Henry VIII. The tower and part of the nave is believed to have been built at the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th centuries. The church would originally have had a chancel, a nave without aisles, a western tower and a north porch.

Reverend John Skinner

Reverend John Skinner was one of the most renowned rectors of St Peter’s Church. Born in 1772 into an upper class family in Bath, he was associated with the gentry of the day. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford and trained to be a lawyer. He had a change of heart and decided to take holy orders and was ordained as a priest in 1799. He entered the harsh world of a Somerset coal mining village called Camerton, Somerset in 1800.

Reverend John Skinner Reverend Skinner was a learned antiquarian, an artist, poet, scholar and a dutiful country priest. He is best known for his journals; he kept a diary of the harsh everyday life in Camerton. His own standards were high; he unfortunately expected people to respect him, they seldom did! He was continuously at odds with farmers and trades people; falling out over tithes due. He came from a background of order and discipline; in Camerton he was faced with drunkenness and immorality and indiscipline. He suffered great family loss; he was a very compassionate man but terribly Sketched by Dave Gallop misunderstood. He smoked opium to help relieve his depression. Life simply got too much for him and due to total despair, he shot himself in nearby woods.

Camerton Court

This magnificent house was built by John Jarrett. It was designed by Mr R.S Repton Esq, who gave it the classical Greek revival style. The house took nearly two years to construct and was ready for John and his wife to move into in the autumn of 1834. It is encompassed in breath-taking scenery on the southern slopes of a landscaped vale which extends through the Cam Valley eastwards towards Bath. The Jarrett family were the owners of the ‘Court’ until the early 1900s, they would have employed local people to work on their estate. They owned most of the land and property in the parish as well as the local mines.

Camerton Court ‘Main Entrance’ There have been many owners over the years, the current owners are the Biggs family. The late Ken Biggs and his wife Ivy worked for many years designing and creating the beautiful gardens as a labour of love.

Japanese Garden

Sketched by Dave Gallop

The garden derives its beauty from mixing and blending different elements, sand, rock, water, natural plants, lanterns, water basins (tsukubal) with its own beautiful surroundings.

Sketched by Dave Gallop 5

Brewery and Public Houses The Breweries sold mainly to public houses and to private establishments. The public house sector was the back bone of the brewer’s trade. Life was grim and work was hard, many used the pub as a way The Jolly Collier Public House of release. Some of the old pubs in Camerton The Rising Sun at Wick Lane The Jolly Collier at Durcott The Camerton Inn at Meadgate

School by kind permission of Mr & Mrs V Goold Before Camerton C of E opened children were taught basic education by teachers in private dwellings within the parish. Pictured below is ‘Camerton C of E School’

The school was founded as a parochial school and later became a church school. It is believed Camerton School was opened in 1846 and extended in 1867. It is a small rural school, the building is owned by the Church of England but maintained by the County by kind permission of Camerton Church School authority. 6

Camerton C of E School Motto is “Work hard and play hard”

Class 1928

by kind permission of Pete Redman Back row (l to r): Ernest Willcox, Henry Biggs, Lloyd Sands, Stanley Fry, Bernard Packer, ?, Ernest or Erick ? Row 2: ? Millard, Olive Biggs, Dorothy Dalton, Edna Church, Eileen Church, Violet Willcox, Dorothy Leaman, Winnie Hawkins, Leslie Sperring Row 3: Mary Hugget, Ruby Harding, Joyce Lewis, Masey Clark, Rosie Ruddick, Eileen Sellars, Ruth Talbot Row 4: Geoffrey Sands, ? Willcox, Frank Atkins, Ernie Chilcot, Jack Huggett

If anyone knows the missing names of the children in the above photograph, please contact Julieann on mob: 07759188869

Mining

Camerton became a strong mining community, there were two collieries in Camerton, the first pit was sunk in the late 1780s and known as ‘upper coalworks’, some years later known as ‘Old Pit’. A better site was discovered and another pit was sunk in the early 1800s, this was known as the ‘higher coalworks', some years later known as ‘New Pit’. New Pit turned out good quality coal and produced as much as 77,000 tons of coal in a year. People travelled long distances to get work and many moved to Camerton and the surrounding areas. The local colliery provided hundreds of jobs and was well known for paying a good wage. New Pit survived to be nationalised and closed in 1950.

New Pit Camerton’s Miners and Carting Boys

from Julieann Biggs’ collection By kind permission of Camerton Church School

In the above picture of Camerton’s miners, you can see a young boy in the middle of the front row, wearing a ‘guss and crook’. Boys as young as 7 years of age had to haul coal from Camerton pit.

The Miners Institute

The old hall was well supported for many years; locals can still remember local bands playing music and dances being held there. The hall provided a wonderful venue for social events; Children’s Christmas parties, the Carnival Queen, Traction Engine rallies and many more activities. Unfortunately the old hall fell into disrepair and access was a huge problem. It was decided by a group of local people to try and build a new hall and relocate it to a better position. It took a huge community effort to get the project off the ground; a decade of fundraising until eventually enough monies were raised to build the new hall. The old hall was demolished and the land was sold. The new purpose built ‘Camerton Recreation Centre’ was opened in 1980. The new hall had good access, ample car-parking space, wonderful sports facilities and a beautiful sports field.

Transportation

The local means of transportation towards the end of the 18th century would have been horse drawn carts. The roads had many steep inclines which proved difficult for horses to pull their heavy loads. The roads were poorly maintained making it an expensive form of transport.

Owners of the Somerset Mines ... … found it hard to compete with coal produced in the Bristol region and South Wales. Their objective was to find new markets for the Somerset coal and be able to sell their coal at a cheaper price. A few owners met up in 1792 to consider the construction of a new canal to connect their collieries to the cities of Bath and Bristol. The line of the canal was determined by the famous engineer John Rennie, already working in the area of the Kennet & Avon. In 1793 Rennie appointed William Smith to take levels for the canal; two years later, William Smith was appointed as surveyor to the canal.

William Smith was known as William Smith ‘Strata’ Smith, he made the connection between fossils and the layer of rocks in which they were in-bedded. It is believed that during the time he was working in the Cam Valley he devised his principles on the science of Geology. He published the first Geological map of England and Wales in 1815 and is known as the ‘Father of Stratigraphy’ and ‘Father of English Geology’.

by courtesy of Wikipedia

The Canal In the summer of 1795 work started on the canal between Paulton Basin and Camerton. In October 1798 this section was completed and barges loaded with coal for the first time moved slowly along the canal from Camerton Coalworks to Dunkerton. In 1799 the northern branch was extended westwards from Camerton. A few local tragedies recorded in Skinner’s Diary concerning the canal

1803 - A stranger from Ireland, named Culling Macnab, who worked in the coal pits, much intoxicated on Saturday night was drowned by falling into the canal.

1805 – Cottle drowned himself in the canal one night after, a quarrel with his wife.

Map showing the Canal running from Paulton Basin, through to Dundas Aqueduct

by kind permission of the SCCS The Canal became the most successful in the country and by the 1820s it was carrying over 100,000 tons of coal per year. Unfortunately in time, due to geological problems, the canal lost too much water and transhipment proved inefficient.

Canal Closure In 1890 and 1893 it went into liquidation, the working life of the canal ceased and it was abandoned in 1898. 11

The Railway In 1903 an 8 mile stretch of abandoned canal was sold to the Great Western Railway to construct the Camerton and Limpley Stoke railway. The first section of the railway line from Camerton to Dunkerton colliery was believed to be straight forward and although it was incomplete it opened on a temporary basis for goods traffic in April 1907.

The construction of the remaining section from Limpley Stoke was a little more challenging and unfortunately a few accidents occurred during the time of construction; it was finally completed in 1910.

Camerton Train Station The passenger service was withdrawn in 1914 due to the outbreak of war, however, coal trains continued to use the Camerton and Limpley Stoke railway throughout the Great War; coals from the Camerton and Dunkerton collieries Courtesy of Colin G Maggs and Gerry Beale, book titled “The Camerton branch” were of material benefit to the national effort. The passenger service was not restored until the summer of 1923, regular passenger trains ran until 1925.

The Camerton colliery was the main reason for keeping the line open for goods traffic. When the colliery closed in 1950 the service was dramatically reduced and due to it not being cost effective, was closed in 1951. In the short term the railway was profitable but it had a similar fate as the canal.

Julieann would like to thank her family, friends and neighbours for helping make this potted history of Camerton possible.

Part 2—Camerton Today

Except where otherwise indicated, photos in this section are provided by kind permission of Tony Fry.

Camerton Parish

Description it very car dependent, having lost its Post Office, shop and both pubs Camerton parish lies in the heart of in the last 20 years. the Cam Valley with the Cam Brook running through. The Cam Valley Character runs east/west with steep sided A significant percentage of the hills to the north and south of the houses (about 50%) are in a central valley plain. The parish is hub, with 3 outlying smaller surrounded by arable farmland hamlets at the edge of the parish. intermixed with a small amount of The roadway structure through the dairy farming as well as woodlands, parish consists chiefly of lanes with hamlets and scattered habitation. two arterial roads - one running The Parish of Camerton is home to north/south and the B3115 running about 600 people living in 258 east/west. There are no pavements dwellings spread over a large in the majority of the parish. In the geographical area (2 miles by 2 past Camerton has been served by miles). The community is poorly a canal and a railway, both of which served by public transport making were used to transport coal.

Camerton Hill

The Powder House

Key Features/Facilities  The Limestone Link National Footpath, which runs east/west  Camerton Batch Local Nature through the parish centre Reserve, an award winning feature of the parish managed by  Site of Nature Conservation local volunteers Interest (SNCI) Cam Brook

 New Pit Batch  The Powder House - the former store for explosives used in the  Ancient monuments – an Iron pits Age Fort, an Anglo Saxon Burial Ground and a Roman settlement  Community Hall and associated playing field  The church, the oldest part of which dates back to the 15th  Camerton Church School century

Camerton Batch Local Nature Reserve (CBLNR)

Camerton Batch is the product of much larger pit continued mining coal mining activities in the 18th through the Second World War and 19th centuries. Camerton had until its closure in 1950. For many two coal mines, which were part of years the two Batches were the Somerset Coal Fields. The old abandoned until Camerton Parish pit shaft (now the site of the Local Council purchased the Old Pit Nature Reserve) was first sunk in site from the National Coal Board in 1781 and the new pit shaft was 1987, subsequently developing it as sunk in 1794. The old pit was in a mining and natural heritage coal production to the mid 1890’s, site. In the mid 1990’s the Council after which its tunnels and shaft formed a ‘Heritage Committee’ and were used as an emergency exit the area has since been managed and air shaft for the new pit. In as a woodland site with a Heritage 1937 the old pit was finally Trail being created. In 1997 the Old abandoned altogether with the pit Pit Batch was designated a Local head capped off. The new and Nature Reserve (LNR).

Ramblers on the Batch

Today the Batch has developed The Miner into an important icon of the region’s industrial past and has become a rich and diverse woodland habitat supporting a variety of plants and animals including the rare Greater Horseshoe bat. There is historical evidence of the Somersetshire coal canal on the northern boundary and the Camerton Branch railway to the south. The pithead site with the capped mineshaft forms the site entrance and we are lucky to have one of the two Miner statues made for the Festival of Britain in 1951 located just to the side of the entrance and information centre Camerton, or would like to take (the other Miner statue is located part in community events, then at “The Big Pit” in South Wales). why not join us as a member? There are also remains of some of Membership is free and offers you the Old Pit buildings at the western the opportunity to have a voice in end of the batch. this project, and to take part in the many and various events and The CBLNR is owned by the Parish regular conservation working Council and is run by the Camerton parties. Batch Local Nature Reserve Supporters Group. If you are For more information please go to interested in nature conservation our website: or the industrial heritage of www.camertonbatch.com.

St. Peter’s Church

Along with All Saints’ Church in St Peter’s is also part of the Ten Dunkerton, St Peter’s Church Lamps Group. The Ten Lamps is a Camerton has a house for a duty group of ten villages (Camerton priest who serves the two parishes. and Dunkerton being two) whose These two parishes are within the Anglican and Methodist churches Benefice of Timsbury, Priston, have agreed to work together to Camerton and Dunkerton in the develop and maintain thriving Midsomer Norton Deanery under Christian communities in all ten the care of the Rural Dean and the villages. Historically the ten villages Archdeacon of Bath within the Bath have had close links and and Wells Diocese. associations with the mining industry.

The church

Church Services First Sunday of the month 9.30am Parish Communion Second Sunday of the month 11.15am Family Service Third Sunday of the month 9.30am Parish Communion

Fourth Sunday of the month 8.00am Prayer Book Communion 6.00pm Evensong Fifth Sunday of the month 9.30am Joint Service with other Churches in the Benefice– a moveable feast!

Parish Life and Events Church Lane

In Camerton, there is a PCC Events sub-committee that arranges concerts, films, talks and coffee mornings plus a bi-annual Camerton Court Open Garden weekend.

The benefice choir, based at St. Peters, is not large but attracts singers who enjoy choral works of both religious and secular origins. The choir supports many services within the benefice throughout the year.

Camerton Church Primary School

The school has been serving learning as well as the more the village community of Camerton traditional subject areas. The school and the surrounding areas since 1846. wants to develop lively enquiring It is an inclusive school and you don’t minds, confident individuals and have to live in the village to attend. focussed learners who can adapt in different situations and who can work Since September 2012, the school is well with others. part of a federation, working collaboratively with St Julian’s Church The school has 3 classes School and Shoscombe Church School. This enables it to provide a Nursery – children aged 2 upwards well-aimed and balanced programme, Woodland – Reception/Year 1 a friendly atmosphere, well prepared including Orchard Group (Year 2), staff and the opportunity for clubs, who have their own sessions each trips, and meetings by the children morning from all three schools. Forest – Year 3-6

All the Staff and Governors work hard Facilities to provide the children with a warm, The school is fortunate to have a large secure and stimulating environment hall, which accommodates all the for learning within an ethos which children in one sitting, so it can hold strongly promotes Christian values. daily whole school assemblies. There The school offers a nurturing are excellent ICT facilities in a environment and a personalised dedicated room as well as an curriculum. Interactive Whiteboard in each classroom. The school also has a small The school believes that children playing field and the use of the need to develop skills that will equip Community Hall field for larger them for the future so it offers a rich activities. curriculum that includes outdoor

School Vision ‘Growing and learning as friends together’

School Values • A happy and creative environment • Healthy, positive and purposeful attitudes • Resilient, resourceful, confident learners • Inclusion • Christian values • The celebration of effort and achievement for all and from all

Camerton Community Hall

Camerton Community Hall is a on request, for use by hirers. registered charity and is run and The Recreation Area with separate maintained by a group of volunteers shower and changing rooms makes it from the local area. ideal for camping and caravanning as well as outdoor and sporting events. Facilities Typical events that can be held on the The Function hall has space for up to recreation area include car boot sales, 200 people and ample parking with caravan club events, dog and cat room to spare. There is a permanent shows, classic car rallies, cricket and stage with lighting making the hall an football matches to name but a few. It ideal venue for wedding receptions, also provides a beautiful setting for screenings, lectures, publicity events wedding reception marquees. and stage productions morning, afternoon and evenings. There is also a For more information please visit our well equipped kitchen, toilets website: (including disabled) and wheelchair www.camertoncommunityhall.org access. A fully staffed bar is available,

Local Organisations/Clubs/Societies

Contact Name Tel. no.

Camerton Batch Local Nature Reserve Louise Fry 01761 471280 Supporters Group Camerton Church School & Nursery Jane Gascoigne 01761 470759

Camerton Community Hall Carol Galpin 01761 434676

The Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal Chris Fiddes 01761 471691 or Mob:07923436950 The Royal British Legion Club, Newmans Chairman - Dave Lorimer 01761 470232 Lane, Timsbury Cam Valley Wildlife Group Deborah Porter

St Peter's Church Revd Gordon Ripley 01761 470249

Neighbourhood Watch Brian Edwards 01761 470175

Camerton Local History Group Julieann Biggs 01761 479319

Camerton and Peasedown Croquet Club Ros Key-Pugh 01225 427525

Camerton Parish Council Camerton Parish Council 01761 411305

Women’s Institute Judy Chidlaw 01761 433595

Bath & Camerton Archaeological Society

Somersetshire Coal Canal Society Steve Page, Membership 01761 433418 Secretary

Email Website [email protected] www.camertonbatch.com

[email protected] www.camertonchurchschool.co.uk [email protected] www.camertoncommunityhall.org/ [email protected] www.britishlegion.org.uk

[email protected] www.cvwg.org.uk [email protected] [email protected] www.ourwatch.org.uk [email protected] [email protected] www.camertonpeasedowncroquet.co.uk [email protected] www.camertonparishcouncil.co.uk [email protected] [email protected] www.bacas.org.uk/ [email protected] www.coalcanal.org

23 Useful Contacts Tel. no. Email or Website

Parish Council Chair Contact the Clerk [email protected]

Parish Council Vice Chair Contact the Clerk [email protected]

Parish Council Clerk 01761 411305 [email protected]

Parish Council Website www.camertonparishcouncil.co.uk

Ward District Councillor 07836342747 [email protected] David Veale

B&NES Council Connect 01225 39 40 41 [email protected]

Your Neighbourhood Non Emergency 101 www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/your-area Police Team

Curo 01225 366000 www.curo-group.co.uk/contact-us/email-us

Doctor- St Mary’s 01761 470880 http://www.timsburysurgery.co.uk/ Surgery Timsbury Out of Hours Call 111

Doctor - Hillcrest 01761 434469 http://www.hillcrestsurgery- Surgery, Peasedown St Out of Hours Call 111 peasedownstjohn.nhs.uk/ John

Dentist – Combepease, 01761 439191 Peasedown St John

Many thanks to all those who contributed to this publication for their work, time and, above all, patience.