near Weston-super-Mare
| Site designed and built by local residents within a course at Broadoak Community School |
| First Millennium | Port of Uphill | Old Church | War Memorial | Uphill in WW2 |
Uphill's first settlers found fertile land around a limestone ridge overlooking a bay full of fish. Two major routes reached the sea there: an ancient track along Mendip; and the River Axe which ran through Somerset's tidal flood-plains into the Bristol Channel. During the 1st century AD, Romans transported Mendip metals and minerals along these routes for shipment home. Two local names, Walborough and Cold Harbour, survive from those times.
The 11th century Domesday Book names the village as Opopille. Pill means "creek" and Oppe derives from Hubba, leader of Danish Vikings who raided the mainland from their base on Steep Holm late in the 9th century.
The
Norman church of St Nicholas, probably on even older foundations, dominates
village and bay from the top of the hill, providing a navigational mark
for centuries of sailors battling through the confused tidal currents
of the Bay into the Axe. Below the church, Uphill Wharf provided moorings
and protection for village fishermen bringing in their catches of cod,
whiting, shrimps, sprats and congers, not to mention the occasional cargo
of contraband to be hidden in Uphill's sand dunes until the coastguard
had passed by.
Coal was landed on the Wharf while lime from the quarry kilns and bricks and tiles made from village clay-pits were exported. Although affected by the railway, some sea-trading continued well into the 20th century, petering out in the Second World War. Above the Wharf, the village quarry has cut away the hill, leaving old St Nicholas Church perched on its rim, 100 feet up.
Caves exposed by quarrying held Palaeolithic flint tools, Roman coins, pottery and human bones as well as bones of animals that once roamed this countryside, mammoth, wolf, hyena, rhino, bear, bison and wild boar. From the days of the Volunteers training to repel Napoleon, through to the Home Guard, the quarry has provided the back-stop to a firing range stretching 900 yards across the salt-flats where firing points are still visible.
For the same period, sentries kept wartime watch from the tower near St Nicholas church. This tower was mapped as a windmill in 1782 and was reputedly originally built in the 13th century, grinding local grain for 500 years. When the rocky hilltop churchyard was in use, it took the sexton a week to dig a grave, until he substituted gunpowder for his spade. The church bell mourned every death by tolling for one hour: once a minute for a man, twice a minute for a woman and three times for a child.
Coffins were usually carried straight up the hill, unless snow was on the ground, when they were dragged up on a sledge. Some came on a cart, with access past The Grange (at a charge of sixpence, so that a right of way would not be established). In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Minifie family were the village undertaker - and blacksmith, farrier, wheelwright and wagon maker - working from their forge at Sandcroft Cottages. These cottages housed workers at Sandcroft House, one of four "gentlemen's residences" listed in 1851, alongside ten farms and 71 houses. The inhabitants of those houses could worship in the new St Nicholas Church or the Wesleyan Chapel and send their children to the new National School.
For leisure they turned to the Ship Inn and the Dolphin. Letters passed through the Post Office in Walnut Cottage, until then a smithy. Although the thatched Old Schoolhouse and Cottage go back to the 18th century, Uphill's oldest residences are Rose Cottage (1695) and Uphill Court, built as a farm in 1620. Almost all were built and walled with stone from the village quarry, generating a strong visual unity. A further unity was given through the 19th and 20th centuries by the Knyfton family who developed Uphill Castle, built the school and established a unique green belt of meadows and woodland round the entire village.
Most
of this history is based on articles in Uphill Village Magazine. Thanks
go to all contributors.
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Sheltered by Brean Down from westerly gales off the Atlantic, the mouth of the River Axe offers a useful refuge where small vessels can be moored or beached on its muddy banks. Before the Somerset Levels were drained, the river could be navigated at high tide for many miles along the southern edge of Mendip. Uphill could have been known to early traders from the Mediterranean. Among these, legend claims, was Joseph of Arimathea, trading for Mendip lead, with his young nephew, Jesus of Galilee, among the crew. After witnessing the crucifixion, Joseph returned to announce the death and resurrection of Jesus. He stuck his staff in the ground where it instantly blossomed, rooted and grew into the Glastonbury Thorn. Stronger evidence suggests that the Romans followed the same river route, using their temple on Brean Down as a navigational marker. And when their occupation ended, they evacuated the last legionaries from the port they had used for cargoes of lead. |
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Folk-memory firmly believes that a Viking raiding party beached its boats along the Axe at high tide and set off inland. The villagers fled, leaving a lame old woman in hiding. She emerged to cut the moorings as the tide turned so that the boats were swept out to sea. Local people then attacked the raiders who made a stand on a nearby hill which ran red with their blood, giving the hill the name of Blood Down … today's Bleadon.
More firmly based on reality were ancient fishermen's rights, rather like common land, meaning that no harbour dues could be charged for the use of Uphill Pill. This made it one of very few free ports in England for mariners. As a result, there was no profit in building a proper wharf until the 19th century coal trade made it worthwhile.
Where there are sailors, however, there is profit in pubs. The Ship claims to be Weston's oldest pub. The Dolphin was built in about 1500 on the site of today's Kayak shop. Like most village buildings it had a thatched roof. Around 1800 it burned down and was rebuilt on its present site by "Forty" Cox who installed gas lighting, run from his own gas-works in the yard. The earliest recorded defence work appears on a 16th century map of "The Coste of England upon Severne". This shows a blockhouse with two cannon just south of the old church. In 1592, Captain John Flegon, master of one of Sir Walter Raleigh's privateers, attacked a French brig, Grayhonde, forcing it to put into Uphill. Its owner, Peter de Hody of Bayonne, petitioned Queen Elizabeth Tudor to return the ship and its cargo as England and France were not at war. Failing in this, he sent agents to Bristol to demand compensation but they received only threats of further violence.
High duties on imported goods made it profitable to smuggle Dutch gin, French brandy, tobacco and tea. As the Customs & Excise men closed down the English Channel coast, smugglers based themselves on Steep Holm, Flat Holm and Lundy. Customs men watched the Axe as early as 1685 and by the 19th century a Customs officer and three preventive men were accommodated in Coastguard Cottages. They patrolled on horseback, and as they rode from Uphill to Kewstoke, so accomplices signalled from the old church or from the Half-Way House, an inn located somewhere near today's Royal Sands. In came the smugglers to dump their contraband in the dunes or to sink their cargo offshore beneath a marker buoy to be collected later. And, just occasionally, a lucky - or watchful - fisherman found the booty before the smugglers did.
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Buried in the old churchyard is "John Bliss, of this Parish, Mariner, who died Sept 29th 1792, aged 58 years". In the same grave lies "Thomas, son of the above John Bliss who died Dec 24th, 1801, aged 32 years." Local residents at that time included three captains of coal sloops and four seamen. Others operated shipping as a business: shipwright John Blanin of Axbridge built an 18 ton sloop Hope at Uphill and Banwell farmer Thomas Hewlett owned the 23 ton William and Mary. Regular packet boat services ran to France and South Wales. One of these was the 21 ton sloop Swansea Packet operated by James Knight of Bleadon until 1917 when it hit the Wolves rocks near Flat Holm, sinking with all 60 passengers and crew. |
An Uphill Enclosure Act of 1818 authorised half an acre of "Newham Warth adjoining the West Bow … for a public wharf for landing, loading and unloading coals and other goods brought in or carried out of the Port of Uphill". Known as the Parish Wharf, this was built where the Wharfe Farm building now stands. As trade increased, hard standings developed along both sides of the Pill for a hundred or so yards and Uphill Port became an associate member of the Port of Bristol. Most traders used sloops of around 25 tons to carry in coal, timber and salt, sailing out with cargoes of bricks, tiles and lime. The military also brought in powder and shot for their artillery batteries on Brean Down.
As these were all sailing vessels, reaching the Wharf from the River Axe via the Pill required a technique known as "drudging". The boat came in on the flood tide, stern first, dragging an anchor to control speed so that the rudder would still operate. Once at the Pill, the boat was warped or towed to the Wharf by a horse or some local lads. Most of the coal came from Wales, with some from the Forest of Dean loaded at Lydney. The best known coal-carrier, Arabella, was later lost off Ilfracombe. Half a dozen barges at a time would arrive to unload into a yard with an officially calibrated weighbridge.
The best coal sold for 10d cwt (4p for 50 kilos). Local people bought their own, taking it away in a donkey cart. The poorest bought a pound (500gms) weight at a time, carting it home in a wheel-barrow. Coal went by the cart-load into Weston for domestic use. The carts came back full of cinders and ash to be sifted and re-sold to make ash-blocks and mortar for builders. As late as the 1930s, Mayor Henry Butt still imported Welsh anthracite through Uphill for his kilns at Milton, producing lime for export back to Wales. Coal was also transferred to smaller barges to be carried as far inland as Weare. The last bulk coal cargo reached Lympsham in 1940.
Behind the Wharf, the Quarry had two lime-kilns, one burning pebbles brought in by boat to produce a brown lime, the other making white lime from quarry stone. A narrow-gauge quarry rail-track carried the product to the quayside. Several workers were employed in making the lime which was used by farmers to improve soil. Other villagers worked in Uphill Brickyard, making tiles and bricks by hand from local clay. They lived round the yard in a cluster of single-storey houses.
Salt came in from brine-wells at Dunball for use in cheese-making. It was stored in a Salt House and sold in 28lb bars for 6d each (12.7 kilos for 2.5p). Fishermen unloaded sprats and shrimps caught off Brean Down. They sold some on the Wharf for 1d per lb (0.4p per 500gms), but the bulk was carted off to back yards in the village - one was behind The Ship. Women were paid in fish to seal the catch into barrels to be carted to the station for despatch by rail to London's Billingsgate Market.
Far removed from this muddy world of sprats and shrimps, proposals in 1851 envisaged a causeway from the Uphill bank of the Axe to Black Rock, where a pier would enable Welsh ferries to link with the unused Bleadon-Uphill railway station. This came to nothing, but, noting that Uphill was handling 16,500 tons of coal a year, a company was floated in 1864 to enclose a great harbour off Brean Down as a rival to Liverpool for American trade. A foundation stone was placed on a buoy ready for the opening on November 5th but the buoy broke loose and drifted off overnight. The company also sank without trace.
In the early 20th century, Uphill harboured the oldest British merchant ship afloat. Retired seaman "Captain" Leonard Smart bought the 40 ton Bristol Channel trow Jane, built of English oak at Runcorn in 1800. After 60 years as a Mersey flat, she was being sailed out of Bridgwater by another member of the Smart family, who sold her to Leonard. After service in the first World War as a Government survey vessel in the Bristol Channel, Jane was sold by Capt Smart to a Bristol coal merchant as a storage hulk. In 1938 she was towed to Lydney to be broken up. By then, the Wharf had become something of a dump.
In 1932 Capt Smart bought another Bridgwater trow, Norah, beaching her as a house-boat, alongside two other abandoned ketches, Daisy and R Passmore. A tramp steamer Duke of Edinburgh also lay there for many months. As the hulks became rat-infested and dangerous, Weston Borough passed bye-laws forbidding misuse of the wharf. Leonard Smart died in 1936 and two years later the hulks were auctioned. They didn't fetch much: R Passmore sold for £4-2-6 and Daisy for £5, but no-one bid for Norah. She was burned with other abandoned hulks at the start of World War 2 and her copper nails and fittings were salvaged for re-use as war materials.
After wartime air-raids, rubble from bomb-sites was dumped on the Wharf. Twenty years after the end of the war, parts of Uphill Wharf and Quarry were leased for development as a boatyard. Vessels returned to organised moorings on the Pill with a slipway, gantry and winch. After inundation by the sea in 1981, material for new sea-defences was excavated, creating a deep circular pool for boatyard users. Villagers retain right of access to the Wharf where Uphill Great Rhyne flows into the Pill.
| The site of the Old Church was in use in prehistoric Stone Age times. The bones of creatures such as the woolly rhinoceros, hyena, horse, cave bear, and bos (the ancient British ox) were discovered in caves below the church (now quarried away) during quarrying operations, indicating habitation by man. The finds were removed to the Museum. Flint tools and weapons were also found indicating the presence of Palaeolithic peoples. Similar finds were made in Bleadon. Roman coins and artifacts were also discovered in the Uphill caves. Later finds from the caves area are also contained in the Weston-super-Mare Museum. |  |
The Somerset Levels that begin to the south of the hill were ancient field systems with sea and river defences and drainage. Further to the south around (the then island) Brent Knoll were marshes and open water. The sea in those times appears to have encroached as far as Street and Glastonbury in the south, and the estuary of the River Parrett, and to the north as far as Congresbury and there were more tributaries to the River Ax than today.
The road from Uphill via Bleadon and Banwell, to Glastonbury provided the only land route by which Glastonbury could be approached from the West. The route along the higher ground of the Mendips was used by the Romans who built a metalled road, sections of which remain today, such as Roman Road on Bleadon Hill.
The port of Uphill was important and provided the focus for trading activities. Phoenician and Roman merchants visited the area to trade pottery, weapons, and fabric, for dairy produce, ale, mead, and cider, wine, fruit and grain, etc.
The coming of the Romans in the first century BC had a considerable impact of the ways of the people and trade increased even more. A Romano-British temple was erected on the site and evidence of this was discovered last century beneath the floor of the open nave of the Old Church. The Roman Emperor Augustine was responsible for the spread of Christianity to Britain and it is suspected that there has been a church on the site as early as 350AD and that there has been a Christian building here ever since. Certainly there was a wooden Saxon church on the site around 700AD. The hill was also the site of a fire beacon to warn of invasion.
The Abbey Monastery at Glastonbury was constructed during the 2nd Century AD and soon began to control much of the wealth and distribution of imports and exports, becoming wealthy on the taxes they introduced. The local warlords also took a slice of the action but even so the area remained relatively wealthy. Glastonbury became a centre for pilgrimage and the port of Uphill became important as pilgrims came from Wales and further up the Severn by boat.
The Old Church was the nearest to their landfall and they gave thanks there for a safe crossing of the Channel. A monastery dedicated to St. Michael was built on the island of Steep Holm. Its abbot was responsible for the church at Uphill. The monastery was undoubtedly provisioned from the port. In the early 500s a young Welsh monk, called Gildas, the son of a welsh prince, was resident on Steep Holm. He had access to the early writings and records of events and collated this information until eventually he was able to assemble the first known written history of Britain.
A Roman temple and fort was built on Brean Down and it seems likely to be the reason that a ferry service was first instituted in Roman times to cross the River Axe from Brean Down to Uphill. It continued in use to 1995
By the mid 500s the Danes were being troublesome and their raids disturbed his studies so Gildas, by then known as Gildas the Wise, decamped to the relative quiet of Glastonbury to continue his work. He later became famous as the abbot of a monastery in France. The area around Uphill was frequently attacked by the Danes and pillaged. So terrified of the Danes, were the villagers that they deserted the village, except for one old woman who coolly cut the mooring ropes of their vessels and they drifted out on the ebb tide – much to the consternation of the invaders. The courage of the old woman inspired the villagers who returned and fought the Danes and drove then off.
During the latter years of the ninth century a young warrior became Alfred, King of Wessex and he formed a band of young followers into a small army. They were for a time based on Brent Knoll, the island in the marshes and confronted the invading Danes who still plundered the area.
He built a small fleet of ships to attack them in their island stronghold of Flat Holm and at sea, lost a few battles but persisted and eventually beat them.
He won a battle against the Danes at Exeter 877 but was also defeated at Chippenham in 878. After an almost fatal encounter with the army of Hubba the Viking and the destruction of Glastonbury by King Guthrum the Dane, he re-assembled his army and finally defeated the Danes. In 879 the Peace of Wedmore resulted in the uniting the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes. He was a diplomat too!
Eventually he even converted the Danish king to Christianity. He went on to form a civil administration throughout his kingdom, laying down the rules of conduct – the legacy of which remains to this day as the Civil Service. His fleet later evolved to become the Royal Navy. Alfred was the only English king to be given the title “The Great”. He deserved it.
His lasting legacy to the country was to influence our history and way of life until the present day. He ordered the planting of oaks throughout the country to provide timber for ship building in the future. Later kings and queens and governments had reason to be grateful to him for this foresight.
It is sad that the most many people know of him is because of the alleged “burning of the cakes”. Perhaps he had weightier things on his mind! We very much undervalue Alfred the Great. Paintings of him and St Gildas the Wise are displayed in the Old Church.
In medieval times the port was in use for pilgrims Welsh pilgrims to Glastonbury and later to Wells. Cattle were brought across by boat from Wales to Uphill and the luxuriant pastures of Somerset where they were grazed and fattened through the summer. Dairy products grain, fruit and cider were exported to Wales and elsewhere from the port. Later, during the industrial revolution, colliers brought coal from the Welsh pits to the wharf at Uphill and limestone was sent to Wales on the return journey.
Cream, butter, and milk, fruit and vegetables that the Welsh could not easily grow were taken to the ports of Cardiff and a regular traffic was established with steel goods and coal forming the main imports. This was a much shorter and easier route than using the port of Bristol.
Uphill declined in use as a port, but remained in use until after the Second World War. The passenger trade from Wales was lost in Victorian times when the town of Weston grew and ferries plied from the Old Pier. This was popular with day-trippers both ways and continued until the late sixties when the pier fell into such disrepair that the ferries stopped using it.
See also Churches | Old Church page
The War Memorial stands in a commanding position overlooking the village, and was constructed in 1920 of Cornish Granite.
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There are two conflicting stories of how the memorial came to be in Its present position. One version says it was moved to the old church because of vandalism when it was positioned opposite the Ship Inn in Uphill Way. The second version states that it was moved from the brow of the hill, where it is thought to have been constructed, by carefully rolling it on logs, to where it is now. Whichever version is true, the outcome is the same , a very fine memorial in a truly commanding position. There are twenty-four names of the men and women who gave their lives in the two World Wars, engraved in the base stone of the Memorial, Thirteen names from 1914-1918,eleven names from 1939-1945. |
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Through events and donations enough money was raised in the year 2000, to restore the Memorial, after many years of weather damage, to its original condition. A simple, but moving rededication service was held on Remembrance Day, November 11th 2000.
" Friends
of War Memorials" a registered charity, which is very involved with the
upkeep and restoration of memorials featured the memorial at Uphill in
its 2000 winter edition newsletter. More information about "Friends of
War Memorials" can be found on their web site www.war-memorials.com
Uphill in World War II
In 1940, Uphill's Home Guard detachment paraded every Sunday outside CSM Palk's butcher's shop at 66 Uphill Way. They trained on the hill and in the quarry. They fired their rifles and Sten guns on the 19th century Volunteers' rifle-range and practised throwing grenades over the sea-wall onto the beach.
The beach itself had piles of rock to stop troop-carrying aircraft from landing and the dunes were wrapped in barbed-wire entanglements. A pill-box at the corner of Slimeridge Caravan Park had loop-holes covering the beach and slit trenches overlooked the Pill. At night, the Home Guard guarded the railway bridges and kept watch from the hill-top tower which was fitted with bunks.
A salvage campaign collected metal likely to be useful in war industries. Uphill's iron railings were cut off, people gave their aluminium pans and a bronze howitzer from the Great War was taken from Uphill Way to be melted down. Children from the London area were evacuated to Uphill. Younger ones attended the village school, others went to St John's, while girls from Barking Abbey and boys from Mitcham County School shared the Boys' and Girls' Schools in Broadoak Road.
A public air-raid shelter replaced the cannon in Uphill Way, a warning siren was mounted on the pumping station in Links Road and the Air Raid Wardens' post was in the school. A searchlight unit was based between the hill and Walborough with the crew accommodated in huts in the quarry. A WAAF crew operated a barrage balloon from the field by Devil's Bridge and an anti-aircraft gun battery fired from the golf course.
Mr Charles Howe of Uphill Way was senior St John Ambulance officer and Miss Graves Knyfton was in charge of the British Red Cross. Uphill's first air-raid casualty was Mrs Elizabeth Senior, killed by a bomb on 8 Moseley Grove on 4 January 1941. An RAF airman, AC2 Bright, won the Military Medal for his courage during this raid.
In the fields south-west of Uphill, the RAF had built a dummy airfield. As enemy raiders approached, lights and fires were lit to attract the bombers. On this night, the ignition system failed and Airman Bright went out to light the target manually, continuing as the bombs fell. Next day, 42 big craters and 1500 incendiary fins were counted there.
In a heavy raid on Weston in June 1942, incendiary bombs set fire to the roof of St Nicholas Church. The building was saved by Rev SR Hosbons, Churchwarden Mr Abrams and Mr Stone, who climbed on the roof to fight the fire. Other villagers carried water from three Emergency Water Supply tanks until the National Fire Service arrived. While the church was closed, services continued in the old church on the hill. All through this, the church-tower clock never stopped.
Convoys of rescue vehicles from Bridgwater and Taunton came to help, assembling in the loop road near Uphill railway station with a headquarters in Coombe Farm, Purn. After this raid, Weston's ARP control centre was moved from the Town Hall to stone buildings in the grounds of Uphill Manor and the Royal Observer Corps shared the watch-tower with the Home Guard. Leading Fireman Thomas Hams of Moseley Grove was injured in the raid, dying a year later. Another Uphill fireman, A Farr of Old Church Road, died in an air-raid on Bristol.