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.

Loo With A View

A couple of Sundays ago, I found myself with an hour or two to spare in Ilminster, in darkest Somerset. 

This wasn’t quite enough time to manage the circuitous 28-mile round trip to Othery – the village, since the uncovering of my great-great-great-great-greatgrandfather’s will, I’m keenest to revisit – but Ilminster itself has lots to love …

 … including these signs of a summer long gone.

I was pleased to see that the local department store is still open and apparently thriving, though it looks a lot more exclusive, dahling, than the last time I passed this way. 

Sundays aren’t always the best days to lap up the atmosphere of an ancient church, and I had been to Il’s rather business-like minster before, so I took to the lanes instead and soon came across the local cemetery. Perfect.

It has everything: preposterous tombs in a stunning setting …

… an Anderson shelter converted into a hovel …

… yew trees and masses and masses of mistletoe …

… sadnesses …

… signs of a spring yet to come …

 … and just the best toilet ever. I mean, look at it.

Obviously, I had to use it. (No, I really did. Even though there was a sitting tenant.)

But as experiences of this type go, it was wholly charming. And since it wasn’t overlooked, I didn’t even have to shut the door. A loo with a view. The perfect pee.

To make my day complete, one of the bunches of mistletoe was just about low enough for me to reach on tiptoe and break off. I’ve always wanted to pick my own and now I have and am hopeful of a fair bit of kissing in our house this Christmas.