Clevedon Sojourn

The trouble with living within a relatively short drive of so many beautiful places is that everyone wants to travel there, particularly on weekends, particularly during the summer holidays. So yesterday we went to Clevedon instead.

The trouble with Clevedon is that it would very much like to be Eastbourne, but despite its best efforts, it just can't counteract the Channel's huge tidal rise and fall ... 

... the rockiness of the beach - at least until it gives way to quickmud ... 

... and a prevailing wind, the effects of which that no bandstand or flower beds can disguise.

I think it should revel in its bleakness. 

We walked up to the pier but decided not to go on as it was a bit too crowded for our Accompanying Border Collie.  Then we realised that the people thronging its decking were going on a boat trip. 

Not just any old boat either - it was the MV Balmoral stopping off on its way from Penarth to Bristol. 

After a drink at the Salthouse we walked around the cliff path to the churchyard of St Andrew's Church, passing the Look Out on the way. This is thought to have belonged to a local family, the Finzels, who were sugar-importers. It's said that they used the Look Out to spot their incoming trade ships.  Though I don't suppose they'd have been looking upriver too much. 

This path forms part of Poets Walk, so named for the town's connections with Coleridge, who stayed in a cottage in the town in 1795 while writing The Aeolian Harp, and some 40 years later Tennyson, whose friend Arthur Hallam, the subject of In Memoriam, is commemorated in the church, along with other members of his family.   

Still no guide books in the Church, despite a sign saying they cost £2. Maybe I just happen to go on the few occasions they've sold out of them.  You'd have thought they'd have made more out of such an illustrious literary connection, however.

Although St Andrew's clifftop churchyard is rather less atmospheric than St Mary's in Whitby or St Materiana's in Tintagel, it still has great views ...

... even if a woodpigeon perched on headstones is a bit less fitting than a corvid ... 

... no, wait, there's a magpie there on that cross, that'll do. 

There's some good 18th century skull and cherub action in the oldest part of the churchyard ...

Come hither mortal cast a eye
Then go thy way prepare to di
Read here thy doom for know thou muft
One day like me be turnd to dust

... including this one her- hang on a minute ... 

Well, I'm blowed - a Tutton. Which is ironic because when I was last in Clevedon and out of sorts, I drove all the way to Othery churchyard, looking (in vain) for the graves of my ancestral Tuttons. But just over the cliff there was one here all the time. I see you, John Tutton. 

I don't know if he is a relative, of course. He was born the same year as my great-great-great-great-great grandfather, George Tutton, although much shorter lived.  And there's evidence to suggest that my ancestors stayed in Othery for a generation or two after George, as his grandson, another George, seems to have been baptised in St Michael's in 1803. Yet by the end of that century, in 1895, my great grandmother, Fanny (nee Tutton) marries yeoman Tom Hill in Clevedon (although they are shortly to decamp to Bristol). Another of her many sisters is married to Joe Rich, landlord of the Royal Oak as well as running a number of pleasure boats for holiday-makers. At some point our Tuttons made the move from Othery to Clevedon. Was it to join relatives already living there?  

Back over Church Hill to Salthouse Park and it was sunny and Clevedon was suddenly beautiful after all.  

In fact, I loved it.

The Vanishing Tuttons of Othery

Clevedon was grey and a bit drizzly. 

Once there, I didn't much feel like walking Poets' Walk and neither did Ted. 

I toyed with the idea of going back home, but the combined presence of a decorator, open tins of gloss paint and a bored-er collie lacked appeal. On a whim I turned south on the M5 and headed for Othery on the Somerset Levels. 

Why Othery? Well, some months ago, I learnt that my maternal great-grandmother's family came from there when the last will and testament of George Tutton, my great-great-great-great-great grandfather, surfaced amongst my late Uncle's papers. 

Now I'm passionate about genealogy but only if someone else is doing the leg-work, as it would take from precious poetry time, so I didn't really have a plan, other than to wander around the churchyard looking at headstones. 

Some of them were sunken ... 

...some colonised ... 

... some weathered ...

... or broken beyond legibility ... 

... and Ted wasn't always the most helpful of assistants ... 

but I did have quite a list of names after a while, including Hamblin, Baker, Pester, Lockyer, Tucker, Fox, Kiddle, Keirle, Savidge, Gotfrey, Tremlett, Goodson, Chard, Winslade, Thresher, Jeffery, Lovibond, Jones ... but no Tuttons.

And so into the Church of St Michael, with its carving over the doorway, now bereft of the nest which was there when I visited in 2008.

This time I opened the door with its heavy latch, massive key hole and sanctuary ring with due reverence, knowing that my ancestors would have touched this iron and wood, pushed against the heft of it also. 

Inside there were lots of memorials. I spotted more Lockyers and Chards, Merriotts, Rouses, Herrings, Shiptons, Robertses,  but no Tuttons - not surprising, I suppose, given that they were farm labourers. 

On the Great War memorial plaque, Goodson, Tucker, Pester and others, but no Tuttons. And none on the handwritten Roll of Honour either. 

I turned my attention to other things, like the carved bench ends, some from the 14th century, some the 17th and some the 19th. Here's St Michael, still slaying the dragon. 

And there was a little mediaeval glass too - three of the four Doctors of the Latin Church, namely Ss Gregory, Jerome and Augustine (but no Ambrose). 

I got a bit excited when I noticed the angel roof in the chancel, but it's a lot more modern than other ones I've seen in Somerset; according to the church guide, that part of the church was almost completely rebuilt in Victorian times, and these angels date from 1851-52. Two of the windows there are boarded up, so it was a bit too dark to get a decent photo.  

There were some now familiar names in the church guide: Merriot, Chard, Keirle, Baker, Lockyer, and even a William Button, Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1268. But noTuttons.

I know, I should look in the Parish Rolls. Well, maybe when I've retired. 

Time to leave. I toyed briefly with the idea of taking the hound for a run on Berrow beach but it was still dank and overcast, so I settled on a more minor detour to the village of Watchfield and some liquid sunshine instead.

The Last Will And Testament Of George Tutton

The last few weeks have not all been all about unpacking boxes and the trips to the tip, there’s been family stuff including my grandmother’s 118^th birthday party, a tradition that began in the year of her death, 25 years ago.  Not for the first time, this year’s gathering brought rediscovered treasure, this time in the form of my great-great-great-great-great grandfather’s will, which, like the pages torn from a bible plundered during the Bristol Riots of 1831, were found by my cousin, Pam, amongst the papers of my late uncle, Meric.

Here’s a transcript of its content:

I, George Tutton of Othery in the County of Somerset do make this my last Will. First I give & demise unto my Son Edward Tutton for his natural life all that my Orchat in Puddle lane and after his Death to my Grandson George Tutton the Son of Edward Tutton to him his heirs and asigns for ever. Allso I give unto Ann Sautell one half part of any Houshold furniture and ten Pounds to be paid by my Exetators hear in after meneted and all my Tools _ Allso I give to my Daughter Hannah Whellar the Sum of thirty Pounds to be paid by my Exeitors. Allso I give to my Daughter Bride Gent the Sum of thirty Pounds _ Allso I give to my Daughter Tammey Barrington the Sum of thirty Pounds all of Good and lawfull Money of Great Britton to be paid by my Exeitors hear in after mentioned with in twelve Month after my Decess _ Allso I give to my four Grandsons that is George Tutton Whellar George Gent George Tutton and George Tutton Son of Edward Tutton the Sum of one Ginuea to barre me to ye Grave _ Allso I give to my Grandsons George Gent and Charles Gent all my Waring appariel equally between them _ Allso I give to all my Grandchildren the Sum of one Shillinge each to be paid __________ immeadetly after my Decess_ Allso I give to my to Sons George Tutton and Thomas Tutton all those my five Acors called the Common in Sedgsmore equal between them subject to all my Legiets to sell or keep whitch they think fit _ and I do hearby appoint my to Sons Thomas and George Tutton to be my hole and sole Executrix_ In Witness hear of I set my hand and seal this third day of Aprial 1821 _ George Tutton ___________ Signed sealed published and declared by the Testator as and for his last Will and Testament in the presents of us who at his request in his presents and in the presents of each other have subscribed our names as Witness there to ___ Wm Tucker ______ Elizabeth Tucker ______ Thomas Tucker

This agrees with the Original      Willm Parfitt Depi Reg

Underneath my cousin has added our line of descent:

George Tutton b 1740 – Last Will and Testament               died 1821

Edward Tutton b 1779 – died 1856

George Tutton b 1803 – died 1867  bap St Michael, Othery

Charles Tutton b 1835 – died 1921

Fanny Tutton b 1870 – died 1948

William (Jack) John Hill b 1896 – died 1953

What delights me, though, is not so much the content, though his bequests – and the way they’ve been recorded – are beguiling.  It is the revelation that he and his family lived in Othery, one of my favourite places on the Levels.

I visited Othery in 2008, while researching places associated with the Pitchfork Rebellion of 1658.  Mostly, it's the name I love. The suffix Y means island and is found in other place names round here, like Muchelney and Athelney. This harks back to when the Levels were the Summerlands and flooded every winter.  The 'Other' bit is presumably a stop-gap appellation that stuck:  ‘oh, you know, that other bloody island'. There might even be a hint of 'they eat their babies there, they do' about it.  

During my visit, I went into St Michael’s Church – again, the dedication points to the rise in the height of the land – and noticed the fine Green Man with his tongue sticking out, and the sculpture of the Archangel Michael himself, saving a bird’s nest from the dragon’s clutches. What I didn’t know is that George Tutton’s grandson, another George and my great-great-great grandfather, had been baptised there in 1803 – and that when George the Elder had been born there, 60-odd years earlier – the carnage of Pitchfork Rebellion would still have been within living memory.

I'm going to have to go back now, with fresh eyes, knowing that this landscape that's enthralled me so long is part of me.