Round Aboutabout the Villages of Langford Budville and Runnington
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RoundRound AboutAbout the villages of Langford Budville and Runnington February 2015 1 CONTENTS 1 Welcome 2 What's On 4 A Walk Back in Time 6 Jubilee Hall 8 Langford Ladies 9 Dairy Delights 10 News from the Villages 11 Community Contacts 12 Roses are Red ... 14 A Heritage Worth Having 16 Green Fingers: Snowdrops 18 Farming Year: Pheasants 20 News from the Churches 24 Our School 26 Young Buddies 27 Night Sky 35 Magazine Info/Ad Rates 36 Bus Timetable 2 Welcome... ... to the February edition of Round About - and, if the cake on the cover isn’t a big enough clue - it’s the First Anniversary of the magazine! I can’t believe that a year has passed by since our first timorous steps into community magazine production. What I do know is that it has been a fascinating time as, with a good excuse to be nosy, we’ve discovered the hidden talents of those who live around us. We couldn’t have managed it without the help of a lot of people - great thanks to: the Parish Council who have encouraged us all the way; our regular contributors who are the backbone of the magazine; the patient and rewarding people interviewed for our articles; the photographers who have brightened up our pages; our proof readers who have laboriously corrected our errors; our sponsors and advertisers who have sustained us; our distributors without whom you would not receive a magazine; and last, but certainly not least, our wonderful printer Laighton Waymouth of Booksprint who gets the magazine out on time every month however late we are at pulling it all together. And one more thank you - to the group of village children who decorated a great array of cakes so I could select one for the cover. They were all delightful - the cakes as well as the children. So what do we have for you this time? A Walk Back in Time sees the village as lived in by one of our villagers nearly 70 years ago and A Heritage Worth Having reveals the amazing family of another. Roses are Red… gives you hints on the flowers you should, or should not, buy your beloved on Valentine’s Day. And if any of you get that wrong, Dairy Delights has something to help you make up for the error. As the weather is too horrible for gardening, Green Fingers enjoys snowdrops, the little flowers that don’t mind the cold and Farming Year takes a look at the history and life of pheasants, a cheerful bird now we’ve reached the end of the shooting season. Happy reading - Marilyn Lilley on behalf of the Editorial Team 3 What’s On Haddons, 10.25-10.35 Runnington Mobile Library White Post 18 February 10.40-10.55am Jubilee Hall 11.00-11.20am Police surgery Jubilee Hall 2 March 7.00-8.00pm Parish Council Jubilee Hall 9 February 7.30pm Meeting Nynehead Local Nynehead 13 February 7.30pm History Society Memorial Hall Take Art: Jubilee Hall 19 February 2015 7.30pm Cirkus Spectakular Langford Ladies Jubilee Hall 19 February 7.30pm Cirkus Spectakular Soup Kitchen St Peter’s Church 19 February 12.00—2.00pm Show: Come to Jubilee Hall 7 March 2015 7.00pm the Cabaret Easter Coffee Runnington 11 April 10.30-12.00noon Morning Church Nynehead Local History Society meet on a Friday evening at 7.30. For dates and subject contact Susie Kenward 01823 662856. Appley Cross WI meet on 2nd Tuesday each month in Bathealton Village Hall. Contact Anne Hendy for details 01823 400476. YOGA the Iyengar way Langford Budville Jubilee Hall Tuesdays 7.00-8.30pm Thursdays 10.30-12.00noon BEGINNERS WELCOME suitable for all abilities contact Jackie Douglas 4 A TAKEART Production Jubilee Hall Thursday 19 February 7.30pm Zany and hilarious, tender and touching, this is a gorgeous show for all the family to share from an acclaimed puppet theatre company Adults £6.00 Children FREE Tickets can be purchased online at www.takeart.org 5 A Walk Back In Time You’re going to need your imagination here… It’s the 1940s and a young boy in short trousers is taking me for a walk through his village. His name is Gerald Brewer, born in 1938 and, like all children, he loves sweets, so we’ll start by visiting a sweet shop run by Frank Salway who also sells a few groceries. It’s in a house on the corner of Whiteball Road, which is the main road in the village, and the road to Runnington. We then head down the hill on the right and on the other side of the road we can see the blacksmith’s where wooden cartwheels are being bonded with iron rims, horses shod and farm implements such as drags and harrows made. The lane to the right of the forge that runs up to Allotment Field was called Cobbs Castle until the seven cottages along there became derelict and it became known as Rats Castle. I can’t think why. As we walk down the road, it is very open and green with the Crown Field on the left and on the right hand side, between Heathfield Cottages and the Martlett Inn, there’s a large duck pond, orchard, wagon shed and stable block where Geoff Braddick of Ritherdons Farm raises his calves. Past the lovely old pub is Courtlands Farm, a small holding with a little shop run by Bertha Leat. She sells sweets as well, but they’re kept in cardboard boxes under the stairs and are sometimes a bit mouldy. Ern Taylor’s cottage is next to the farm and he works at Bere Farm and keeps poultry in the ruins of some cottages nearby known as Stuckey Pitts. Next door to Ern’s cottage is the Post Office which includes a shop and carpentry business. It is owned by Dolf Stephens, and his wife and her 6 sister, Miss Twyford (from the Twyford Sanitary Ware family) run the shop. Once a week Gerald visits the shop with two rabbits caught by his father and in return the ladies give him enough cigarettes to keep Harold Brewer supplied for the coming week. The sisters are both very, very large. So large in fact that when they go for a drive in their tiny Austin 10, one sits in the front to drive and the other has to sit in the back on the far side of the car so they both have enough room. Miss Twyford is a bit of a character, walking through the village draped in West of England hessian sacks with a black cat draped around her shoulders. Gerald tells me cheeky story: the ladies hang up their washing in the orchard we passed earlier and each pair of their drawers stretches between two trees. The children have great fun playing hide and seek between these undergarments. Beyond the Post Office we pass Croxhall, an elegant house owned by the Fox family who own the woollen mill in Tonedale. Gerald has been told that the flat roof on the house is meant to catch water, but reckons the owners use it for sun bathing. The house has a very large garden and next to it is the vicarage and library. Rev Swainson banned Gerald from the building when he was 8 years old for hitting Lillian Brown over the head with a library book. There’s a derelict old cottage next door which is used to store faggots of wood which are used as straddles, bundles of wood laid on the ground under hay or corn ricks to stop them getting damp. Gerald and his friends collect twigs for the faggots from the common for Bill Braddick and as a reward he takes them to Weston-super-Mare for donkey rides. As we cross the road and head back up the hill to take a closer look at St Peter’s Church, Gerald remembers something important – he’s forgotten all about choir practice and disappears through the church door like a rabbit down a hole. We’ll have to continue our walk later. Marilyn Lilley after a long, long chat with Gerald Brewer We’ll walk around the rest of the village next month. 7 News from the Jubilee Hall Hedge planting on the Crown Field Shortly before Christmas pupils from Class 1 at the village school, assisted by members of the village hall committee and several helpers, planted over 500 hedgerow whips on the low bank alongside the footpath across the Crown Field. You can see the photos on page 25. The whips included among others, hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn, crab apple and were donated by the Woodland Trust in commemoration of the First World War. Each whip had to be staked and covered with a plastic spiral to protect it so the children and all the helpers were kept busy on a cold but dry morning. A few more whips will be needed to finish the new hedge and once this is done a stock proof fence and field gate will be erected beside the hedge to complete the Crown Field footpath project. It is hoped to put in place a small notice to inform users of the path that the hedge is part of the First World War remembrance. Exterior lighting at the village hall The Trustees have been successful in their bid to Viridor Credits for a grant to install exterior lighting at the Village Hall. Presently two temporary floodlights have served this purpose but lighting around the hall itself has been minimal.