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 …

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 …

Only 3 years?

I suddenly realised that it’s 3 years since Prior to Now launched as a website, building on the book. It happens that in May 2015 I wrote 3 blog articles: Bathampton Manor on May 3rd, Prior Park sale on May 5th and Particulars of Prior Park sale in 1808 on May 8th. A year later in Read More …

A shaggy dog story

Things that are new on the site recently are a small section on Combe Road – something of a shaggy dog story given that it, unfortunately, has so little of consequence in it. But one can’t just make things up for a site like this. There’s also a brief article on Mulberry Park the the 48 acre Read More …

Help Save Our Stone Heritage

The ‘message’ this month is a little different from normal. The Museum of Bath Stone, the Combe Down Heritage Society and The Friends of Firs Field charities are running an appeal for funds called “Help Save Our Stone Heritage”. They want to restore the remains of a shaft wall where Combe Down freestone was hauled out Read More …