Two stone pillars and an iron gate

In March 1895, in response to demand from villagers, Monkton Combe Parish Council rented several acres of land at the eastern end of Church Road, Combe Down for use as allotments. In August 1895 the Parish Council paid Mr George Fisher the sum of £2 8s for building two stone pillars and fixing an iron Read More …

More Combe Down family maze

In April I published the Combe Down family maze. It covered some 8,600 individuals. About 320 of those are gentry that lived on Combe Down and about 2,900 are ‘ordinary’ people that that lived on Combe Down or in Monkton Combe. The other 5,000 or so are ‘linkers’, i.e. the people who link families across Read More …

The Miner family on Combe Down

Michael Miner has recently given me the story of the Miner family on Combe Down. You can see it here. The Miner family are a long established Combe Down family and have lived at many addresses, including: 1 Green Cottages, Combe Down 1 Miner’s Cottages, Monkton Combe 2 Quarry Rise, Combe Down 2 Upper House, Read More …

Combe Down family maze

I hadn’t realised but it’s a year since I last wrote anything about the site which was Update to ‘Our Block’ and before that it was October 2018 with More Combe Down cousins. That is actually what has stopped me from publishing anything as I have been working on a Combe Down family tree or, Read More …

Update to ‘Our Block’

I have just updated the ‘Our Block‘ page after Ian & Susan Parsons at 121 Church Road kindly lent me the deeds that they have in their possession. Interestingly, most of them were for Claremont House, 109 Church Road but they also encompass Claremont Cottage, 107 Church Road, Claremont Lodge, 119 Church Road as well Read More …

More Combe Down cousins

Following last month’s movers and shakers post I have discovered more Combe Down cousins for that link them to other families who lived in the ‘big houses’. Those are the Allen, Atherton, Bennett, Bryan, Cruttwell, Daubeney, Disney, Falkner, Fortt, Gabriel, Gore, Hope, Howard, Maude, Morley, Richardson, Vivian and Wingrove families who are mentioned on this site in numerous places This post is probably best read with last month’s post open in another tab for easy Read More …

Movers and shakers

I have been convinced for a while that the “movers and shakers” who built and lived on Combe Down from the time of Ralph Allen to the early 1900s were probably related – albeit distantly. By movers and shakers I mean the Allen, Atherton, Bennett, Bryan, Cruttwell, Daubeney, Disney, Falkner, Fortt, Gabriel, Gore, Hope, Howard, Maude, Read More …

Benjamin Wingrove

In another tenuous coincidence I have discovered that Benjamin Wingrove (1773 – 1840), who has his own page on this site, and was an attorney, land speculator, agriculturalist and road builder is the 1st cousin 1x removed of the wife of the husband of the 7th great-aunt of our son-in-law. I said it was tenuous! The Read More …

Curo cable car plan – clanger or cock up?

I’ve added a section about the Curo cable care plan that flew across the sky between 205 and 2017 whilst Curo were starting the development of Mulberry Park and having some ‘issues’ with their Foxhill master plan – which was mentioned in last month’s blog ‘Black hats or blunderers‘.  The Curo cable care plan was Read More …

Black hats or blunderers?

Somehow when ever I see the words ‘master plan’ I give a tiny shudder. I think of evil dictators and ‘James Bond villains‘, the ‘black hats of cowboy movies too. The saga of the Foxhill regeneration master plan that ran on Combe Down for 5 years or so has elements of the things that give Read More …