illustrated map of Somerset

Here's my new Somerset map. You can get a copy of it here. 

There's lots of stuff on the map, so I've compiled a concordance to explain its presence on the map. Here it is:

Ada Lovelace -mathematician, created the first computer algorithm in her work on Babbage’s Difference Engine (see also 2DGoggles). Spent her summers at Ashley Combe, near Porlock

Adge Cutler -born in Clevedon, grew up in Nailsea. Founder of The Wurzels, supergroup of the Scrumpy and Western scene. Died young, crashing his car near Chepstow after a gig.

Ashbrittle -the yew is thought to be over 3000 years old, and is one of the 50 Great British Trees, so there.

Ashton Court -the estate was bought by Bristol in 1959. Venue for a fine small community festival; presently, regularly hosts the balloon fiesta

Banwell – home to the Bone Cave (full of prehistoric animal bones) and the Stalactite Cave (ditto, but with stalactites)

Barrington Court – Tudor manor house; Arts & Crafts gardens by Gertrude Jekyll

Bloomfield – home to Joe Strummer, musician, of The Clash and The Mescaleros. He died here on 2002

Brendan Sellick – of Stolford. The last of the mud-horse fishermen.

Bridgwater – Brickworks; also birthplace of Admiral Robert Blake, Father of the Royal Navy but a bit neglected by posterity because he was a Parliamentarian. The Duke of Monmouth watched the progress of the Battle of Sedgemoor from the tower of

Bristol Belvedere – one of the several helicopter types built by Bristol Aircraft’s helicopter division in Weston Super Mare

Bruton – John Steinbeck lived here for six months in 1959 while researching a book on the Arthurian legends

Buckland St Mary – the church is described as ‘a noble incongruity’ by Pevsner. We saw it peeping out of the trees while we were driving along to the south, and detoured. It was well worth it; and the memorial to Madalena Louise Lance, depicted breaking from her tomb with her baby son, is startling and moving

Castle Cary – there’s me with my MZ Super 5 motorbike, because on a summer day long ago, en route to Weymouth, the throttle cable snapped in the Mendips, and I carried on to Castle Cary with the frayed end of the cable clamped in a mole wrench and held against the fuel tank by my right knee. I found a friendly motorbike garage, and waited, listening to the blackbirds singing, while they obligingly made me a new cable. It’s a fond memory.

Charterhouse – the Romans (or at least their slaves) mined lead here. There’s the remains of an amphitheatre too. The mines feature in the first of the Falco novels by Lindsey Davis, and there’s a lead ingot from those times in the museum in Wells.

Chard – John Stringfellow, engineer in the lace industry, and aviation pioneer - ‘In 1848 Stringfellow achieved the first ever powered flight using an unmanned 10 ft wingspan steam-powered monoplane, built in a disused lace factory in Chard, Somerset. Employing two contra-rotating propellers on the first attempt, made indoors, the machine flew ten feet before becoming destabilised, damaging the craft. The second attempt was more successful, the machine leaving a guide wire to fly freely, achieving some thirty yards of straight and level powered flight.’

Claverton – a waterwheel-powered pump built to supply the Kennet and Avon Canal with water. The building was restored and there are open days with the pump running, though on a day-to-day basis the water goes up to the canal by electric pumps. The building suffers from flooding, and increasingly so in recent years

Clevedon – a fine pier, and marine lake. Birthplace of Jan Morris, historian (see her Pax Britannica trilogy) and travel writer who, as Times correspondent attached to the expedition, hared down the mountain to break the news of the first Everest ascent on Coronation Day, 1953

Combe Florey – home of Evelyn Waugh, novelist and curmudgeon

Crewkerne – Birthplace of Ralph Reader, who started Gang Shows, for good or ill. Also a memory of driving here from Portsmouth in my old Moggy van to drop off my friend ‘Copnor’ Dave Tudgay, and joining him for a pint in his local. Cider with Vimto was the drink of choice.

Cricket St Thomas – Cricket House was built for Admiral Hood, but posterity has tainted it by its association with Noel Edmunds, and his Crinkley Bottom and Blobbyland. Hey ho.

Crowcombe – in among the Jacobean pew carvings there’s this unusual Green Man, with Tritons coming out of his ears and biffing each other with clubs, as you do

Downside Abbey – a Benedictine community, and public school. Entering the Abbey is like going into a medieval cathedral while it was still medieval. ‘With its commanding W tower it is Pugin’s dream of the future of English Catholicism at last come true’ (Pevsner)

East Coker – TS Eliot’s ancestral home and where he was buried. The poem East Coker is one of the Four Quartets

We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

Elizabeth Sydenham of Combe Sydenham Hall was betrothed to Francis Drake; but while he was away on a long voyage, her father arranged another marriage. On their way to the church at Stogumber, there was a crash of thunder and a meteorite landed; this was taken as a sign that Drake had returned to Plymouth, which he had, so she did marry him in the end.

Evercreech – The village Wikipedia page mentions the harmonious relations between the locals and black American GIs during the war. This contrasts favourably with Shepton Mallet, whose prison was used by the US Army during the war… ‘A 2003 Channel 4 film claimed that a disproportionate number of black soldiers were executed: although the U.S. military was 90% white, 10 of the 18 men executed there were black and three were Hispanic’

Fairey Swordfish – the ‘Stringbag’ flown by the RN’s Fleet Air Arm during World War 2. Notable successes were the attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto, which inspired the Japanese to do the same at Pearl Harbour; and the crippling of German battleship Bismarck. RNAS Yeovilton is one of the RN’s two big air bases; her ‘stone frigate’ name is HMS Heron.

Farleigh Hungerford – there’s a swimming club on the River Frome

Frome – the annual Cobble Wobble, a bike race up the steep cobbled street. Big Bird has been one of the contestants

Glen Frome – one of P&A Campbell’s White Funnel line, a fleet of paddle steamers operating out of Bristol up and down the Bristol Channel. Except that this ship is actually Glen Gower, not Glen Frome, which wasn’t a thing. My mistake! No idea why I did that; probably thinking of Glenfrome Road in Bristol, near where I used to live…. I’ll probably correct it in the second edition

Green Ore – the statue of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus was carved by Gaetano Celestra, an Italian prisoner of war who was employed in repairing bomb damage in the district. Here's a poem about it all

Guglielmo Marconi made the first broadcasts across water, between Brean Down and Lavernock Point in Glamorganshire

Haddon Hill – there are Redstarts here, so I drew one. Also a curlew, because the colour goes well with the hills

Hatch Beauchamp – resting place of John Chard, who, as a Lieutenant, commanded at Rourke’s Drift, winning the VC for his defence against the Zulu army

Henstridge – A Royal Naval Air Station, used for practising deck landings. That’s a Westland Wyvern landing with its arrester hook down

Hinkley Point – nuclear power station. They’re busy building new reactors, using Big Carl, the biggest crane in the world, allegedly

Ilchester – birthplace of Roger Bacon (1219-1292), scientist, theologian, wizard. Here’s his necromantic brazen head, busily prophesying.

Jan Morris – see Clevedon

Keynsham- ‘tell me more about Keynsham’*. Chocolate was manufactured there, first by Fry’s, then Cadbury; then the factory was bought by Kraft, who promptly closed it and moved operations to Poland. Keynsham used to be spelled out on Radio Luxembourg by Horace Batchelor, advertising his football pools scheme
*Bonzos reference

Kilve – lots of exposed ammonites and bits of ichthyosaurs on the foreshore.

lifeboat Louisa – during a storm in January 1899, the sailing vessel Forest Hall was in trouble in Porlock Bay. The Lynmouth lifeboat ‘Louisa’ was unable to launch due to the sea conditions; so they hauled her up Countisbury Hill, then down Porlock Hill, and finally launched and reached Forest Hall.

Long Ashton – site of the former Long Ashton Research Station, set up to improve cider, but diversifying into other fruits and their preservation. They invented Ribena there too

Lulsgate – Bristol Airport, whence you can fly to exotic resorts and buy souvenir sombreros

Meare – the Abbot’s fish house, part of Glastonbury Abbey

Mells – resting place of Siegfried Sassoon, poet of the Great War

Mendip wallfish – snails were gathered in the Mendips and eaten enthusiastically by Bristol glassblowers, who thought it was good for their throats

Milborne Port – an incident with a thrown firework in the marketplace resulted in a landmark case for the development of modern tort (personal injury) law

Milverton has a ‘noble Quaker history’. I added a picture of George Fox, as he looks very Quakery and there’s a nice song (‘Walk in the Light’, or just ‘George Fox’) written about him by Sydney Carter in 1964. Check out John Kirkpatrick’s recording.

Nether Stowey – Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived here for three years from 1797; he was famously interrupted during his opium-inspired writing of ‘Kubla Khan’ by a ‘person from Porlock’. See also Watchet, and the statue of the Ancient Mariner. The Wordsworths stayed a little to the west at Alfoxton Park, and their wanderings in the area aroused suspicions about their seditious intentions. Here’s EP Thompson:
‘Walking with Thelwall in the Quantocks in the summer of 1797, the poets came to a beautiful secluded dell.

"Citizen John," said Coleridge, "this is a fine place to talk treason in."

"Nay, Citizen Samuel," replied Thelwall, "it is rather a place to make a man forget that there is any necessity for treason."’

Norton St Philip – the excellent George Inn. The Duke of Monmouth was here during his failed rebellion, and Judge Jeffreys subsequently presided here in one of his series of Bloody Assizes, executing twelve men.

paper mill – Watchet has a history of paper making, continued to this day by Two Rivers, now located on the quayside, but formerly in a water mill up the valley. Good paper, too!

Paulton Batch – ‘batch’ is local name for a slagheap, and Paulton Batch is a rare survivor from the area’s coal mining history. A fine sight, comparable to Avebury, or the now-dispersed slagheap at Bargoed, once the biggest slagheap in Europe and one of the Seven Wonders of South Wales.

Porlock Hill – it’s very steep. I did a mischief to my motorbike going up there once, burning out the voltage regulator.

Portishead – the eponymous band. Also the former site of Portishead Radio, once an important conduit for marine communications, before mobile phones, satellites and the internet came along and found their way onto ships. Battery Point lays claim to being the closest point on the UK coastline where large vessels pass, and you may find ship spotters hanging out there watching the car transporters rumble by into the Royal Portbury Dock. Down on the tiny beach you’ll find lots of fossil crinoids.

Priddy 

Shepton Mallett

Somerton – some of ‘The Monocled Mutineer’, the story of Percy Topliss, was filmed here

Sparkford – home of the Haynes Manual, for good or ill. There’s a car museum too

Stanton Drew - a humungous great stone circle.

Steep Holme – a stone head, thought to be Celtic, was uncovered during an archeological dig. The island’s an interesting day out; we went out on a RIB from Weston. It’s a very cliffy sort of island, as the name suggests, with fortified positions all around the coast and precipitous steps and paths. But you’ll need a stick to beat off the damn seagulls, if you go in nesting season.

Stoke-sub-Hamden St Mary’s church has a sheela-na-gig among other Romanesque carvings

Stony Littleton – a long barrow, a fine example of the ‘Cotswold-Sern group’ of chambered long barrows

Street – Clark’s shoes are represented by the pair of pasty shoes I had back in the 80s. They were fine shoes and I miss them.

Sutton Bingham – look, there’s an osprey

Taunton – the County town, where the Duke of Monmouth was proclaimed king. Also home of the Hydrographic Office since 1941; the people responsible for Admiralty Charts, those invaluable aids to navigation. Sir Francis Beaufort was chief of the office in earlier times; he it was who came up with the Beaufort Scale, and commissioned the Beagle expedition upon which Charles Darwin began developing his ideas on evolution.

Tiger – Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm in Wraxall got into a spot of bother when they buried a tiger…

Tom Faggus – highwayman, borrowed by RD Blackmore for Lorna Doone. He was legendarily supposed to have escaped from the lawmen who’d captured him in the inn in Simonsbath when Winnie his horse jumped through the window and kicked them.

Watchet – there’s a statue of the Ancient Mariner (complete with albatross), because Watchet is supposed to have provided Coleridge with the inspiration for his poem

Wedmore – a wall painting of a mermaid in the church. She holds a mirror and a comb, as a warning against vanity, so basically a chance to have a scantily-clad woman to ogle while being judgemental

Wellington – Arthur Wellesley was given the title of Duke of Wellington because it started with the same four letters. They built him a monument.

Wellisford – the Grand Western Canal once extended from Tiverton to Taunton; at Wellisford, an inclined plane pulled boats up the hill using steam power.

Wells – the spoonbill eating a frog is carved on a capital in the Cathedral

William ‘Strata’ Smith – his examination of strata exposed in mining and canal building led him to create the first geological map of the country

Wincanton - has a race course, and is twinned with Ankh-Morpork, that fabled city in Terry Pratchet’s Discworld novels. That’s the Arms of Ankh-Morpork there.

Wookey Hole – the Witch is an oddly-shaped stalactite. Or a witch, depending on your point of view

Wulfric of Haselbury – an anchorite and a bit of a celebrity, consulted by kings Henry 1 and Stephen

 

replacing the pedal assist sensor on a Swytch bike

I put a Swytch electric conversion kit on my bike last summer. It's very useful, though the claimed range is substantially greater than the 22 miles I actually managed on test (a ride from Bradnford on Avon to Bath and back). I was worried that two things would prove problematic for an electric bike on the towpath; mud everywhere, and getting adequate power from my solar panels to keep the battery charged.

Apart from a few gloomy weeks in the depths of winter, I've managed quite well at keeping the battery charged. And the electrics have proved robust in a hostile environment.

All except for the pedal notion sensor. This has clogged up several times, stopping it from working; which meant I've had to strip it down and clean it. 

Swytch do have a few different sensors, but they're all out of stock at the moment, so I decided to put an unbranded sensor on in place of the faulty one. This one came from Amazon and cost me £20. 

Its plug is compatible with the original connector, and now the motor's working as it should!

St Brigid's Eve; celandines and mistle thrushes

Happy St Brigid's Day! Here she is with some oystercatchers, known in Gaelic and Irish as 'Brigid's servants' - Gille-Brìde, or Giolla Brighde, depending on which side of the water you're on. They saved her life once, by concealing her in seaweed when she was being pursued by blokes with evil intent. We don't get oystercatchers on the canal, though we do see the occasional sandpiper and egret. But yesterday's bird, on our walk in the woods, was the mistle thrush calling at Smelly Bridge.

very velvety new antlers on this roebuck

a dormouse box

King Alfred's Cakes, because they look burned. They make good firelighters.

coming out of the woods, there's Eve!

 

the first celandine!

midwinter on the canal

Moored up at Diggers, between Bradford on Avon and Bath, in the Avon valley. The boat next door is Kestrel, an old working butty.  At dawn, the song thrushes are singing their winter song, and cormorants fly along the valley from their roost upriver. A pheasant is BOCKing from the woods, and a deer barks now and then. 

Every day I've been down to the post office to send off orders, even in the drenching rain, which my sou'wester and new-to-me Rohan raincoat kept out, though the rest of me got very damp indeed. But now that the post-in-time-for-Christmas deadline is passing, things are quietening down. 

Being so busy sending things off for other people's Christmasses, I've not done anything for my own, which is always low-key anyway; I was always quite happy to be working at sea over the Christmas season, when the fun was serendipitous and incidental rather than mandatory, which is what spoils it.

La cordonniere est toujours le plus mal chausse. This year, I solved the problem of not having sent cards to my friends, by marking St Bridget's Day instead, a time when the world is beginning to wake up again. I think I'll keep that up.

Kennet and Avon Canal 2026 Calendar

The 2026 calendar has arrived! I've gone back to focussing on the wildlife along the canal this time. There's old friends like the badgers in the woods around Bradford on Avon; and now the beavers that have arrived in the area, livening up life on the river. 

The calendars cost £10, and you can get them from my Etsy shop, or Devizes Books, or Noah's Pantry in the marina in Bradford on Avon. And I'll be at the Floating Fayre in Bradford on Avon on the last weekend of November.

Wolcum Yole, like Welcome Yule but in Middle English

I've been busy (at least, what I call busy) getting the pictures together for next year's calendar; and at last I'd got enough, which is to say, twelve.

So I got to work formatting them, and had just about finished when I got a call from the printers (Minuteman Press in Bristol, excellent folk). They'd got my Christmas cards ready.

Turned out nicely (by the way, you can find them in my Etsy shop here). I called the picture 'Welcome Yule', partly because the boater whose boat this is has obviously just brought the firewood in, and is about to have a reviving glass of Jaegermeister while the kettle boils. And partly as a nod to the medieval carol of that name, that appears in Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols, which I first heard while driving home for Christmas after one of my seafaring trips. I'd come up from Dorset through snowy hills, and this came on the radio and it was perfect for the moment.

Candelmesse, Quene of Bliss,
Wolcum bothe to more and lesse.
Wolcum, Wolcum,
Wolcum be ye that are here, Wolcum Yole,
Wolcum alle and make good cheer.
Wolcum alle another yere,
Wolcum Yole. Wolcum!

Welcome Yule

I'm not drawing the pictures for next year's calendar in any particular order, and the latest one is for December, as you can perhaps tell.  

I thought it would be fun to do a winter version of my earlier picture, 'La vraie liberte c'est le vagabondage'. And I was right; I had great fun doing it. Thinking of a suitable title for it is proving hard; keeping the french theme, I thought of 'toi, prends ta flute, Robin', a line from the French carol 'Patapan' that we sang as first formers at school, walking into the assembly with candles and being all angelic, or at least as angelic as a ragtag of 11 year olds can be.

But maybe just 'Welcome Yule'. 

Anyway, there it is. Here's the summer one for comparison