Over 250 Years On Combe Down
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Missionaries operate on the front line between cultures. We don’t hear so much about missionaries these days.Today they are seen by many as invasive, forcing their language, culture and religion on an unwilling population – as another form of colonialism and exploitation. It was not always this way. In the 19th century many Europeans and Read More …
I have added some information about Combe Down war memorials and casualties in WWI and WWII. There are already sections on ‘The Great War‘, the war memorial and the Second World War but there was nothing about ‘The Fallen‘, the war casualties. We commemorate them on Remembrance Day (Veterans Day in the USA), 11 November Read More …
This time I am writing about more memories from Frank and an 1832 marriage settlement. That’s Frank Sumsion who tells us about Senior School and the outbreak of the Second World War. Those days were certainly interesting with the Bath Blitz in 1942, having to use Morrison shelters to protect oneself from the bombing and with every item of food and Read More …
I have long wanted to introduce some personal memories of Combe Down into the site. The article written by Jackie Carr, wife of Dr David Carr about the history of Combe Down surgery was a step in this direction. Serendipity has struck with the memories of Frank Sumsion who was born on Combe Down in 1926, meaning Read More …
I realised that I haven’t mentioned The Old Vicarage and the clergy of Combe Down in the blog. That’s an error as as the house was designed by Henry Edmund Goodridge (1797 – 1864) who designed one of Bath’s iconic monuments: Beckford’s Tower. He also designed one of the world’s earliest retail arcades The Corridor in central Bath. He designed Cleveland Bridge at the Read More …