Highbridge Podcast Ep5 -John Strickland local historian

The Highbridge Podcast

Intro Jingle 0:10
You're listening to the Highbridge podcast celebrating the people, places and history of the Highbridge area in Sedgemoor.

This season is funded by seed which is a consortium of community organizations in Sedgemoor comprising of Bridgewater senior citizens forum Bridgewater Town Council, Community Council for Somerset homes in central Somerset film and young Somerset, which is funded and supported by Arts Council England, creative people in places lottery funding and the Arts Council.

Mell T 0:50
Today I'm speaking to local historian John Strickland. Now, although he focuses on Burnham on Sea history, as we all know, Highbridge and Burnham overlap, and that there is lots of bits of history that that do appear in sort of both areas. And as John John's tried to keep record of these facts amongst his main focus, so welcome along, John.

John Strickland 1:11
Hello there.

Mell T 1:12
And I want to start off with John what, what are your What are your memories of old Highbridge when when you were younger? What do you remember about Highbridge?

John Strickland 1:22
Well, it's yeah, it was a very, very interesting place from my, from the childhood point of view. I was very lucky in so far that my neighbor in Burnham, he worked at the brick and tile works where Apex Park is, is now of a weekend, he often had to go in and do a bit of overtime, what they call pulling tiles that they were on, on that the the drying room, the air drying room, and they had to just pull them forward slightly, apparently, otherwise, the little pips on the end would break off. So when he did that, he knew I was interested in fishing. And he used to take me along to fish in the pits out there. And I did that for quite a long, long time. Weekends wise, it was very interesting, because one, I remember the first time he took me the pit, it was a lot further on than where the apex pits are now. And I think that must have been the apex of brickwork pond. But then in later days, they started actually moving there was a allotment all by the side of where the garage is now, and a little Lane through the side where you could cycle that through. And they started filling in this big pit that was there. And there were all cars everywhere. And we'd go and sit on the roofs of these old cars half-submerged, and do our fishing, it was it was really good times really, really good times.

Mell T 2:49
So what sort of decade are we talking about there?

John Strickland 2:51
It's probably in the very early 60s, the Brickworks they must have been running down at that stage. But yeah, around about the 60s.

Mell T 3:02
What I found interesting is that you sent me through an old newspaper clipping so I'll just summarise it by saying, mammal bones dating back to Neolithic times were discovered when work was being carried out at Apex Park pond in Highbridge. And newspaper clipping from August of 1966 explained that the bones and carbon dating along with pollen samples from the peat around the bones, indicated it dated back to 1200 BC now that that's some history for Highbridge to be able to claim

John Strickland 3:35
It's fantastic. It really really is. And it was so interesting. And when I left King Alfred school at by then I was actually August that was that was my holiday from the Bridgwater College. But I knew my dad was involved with it. And of course, I went along with spade and it was really, really what we were finding. I mean, it was very fortunate so far that dad knew Tom Cornish who was a manager at the site there. And they agreed they found these bones initially. And they agreed to pump out an awful lot more water so that we can actually dig further down and you'll be digging longer and it was just thick mud. I mean literally, they talk about peat samples in this article, but it was thick mud and very, very heavy. And you saw it go down carefully we use pay and also you hit something hard. And I mean, I've never had the confirmation of anything but we found bones there they reckon it was ox bones and there was reindeer antler and things like that. And of course when you go back in times, a lot of the area rain there it was it was flooded by water. The thought was from some of these people who went and looked at this was probably a huge great freshwater pond or pool and animals used to come drink. And then of course they they were prayed to these other creatures. Really, really interesting.

Mell T 5:06
You obviously were a keen fisherman in the younger days. So you also mentioned a bit too Coalhurst and Simmons pond.

John Strickland 5:13
Well, that's right. Well, it's known as Apex up there now. But that whole area that the the Apex ponds was that was in fact Coalhurst and Simmons, there were there were two companies there. And a very, very busy I mean, quite large. I think. If you go back in time, there was more than 10% of the local population were actually employed there. Which is of course, in those days it was Burnham and Highbridge combined there was there was there was no split as it were from from the council point of view, the more you look at that area there, of course, the railway came right close to it there. And a lot of the places now you walk along, you connect your walk along the old railway line. And there was actually two because it was so busy in going back in those days. There were actually two sidings from the railway in there, where they could, they could load the trucks and then obviously, it was much easier to transport because before then, it was horse and cart. Of course, Highbridge wharf was very, very busy. And they used to then have to horse and cart it down to Highbridge wharf. And then they load it onto boats to go all the way around. And it's really, really interesting because it although it was it was called the brick works. It was the it was the brick and tileworks. And there was one tile made locally, I'm not sure in all fairness if it was done, but it was made from the the top silt of mud, and it was called a bath brick. And it was used for cleaning. And it's really interesting because if you if you go on searches now on the internet, a lot of these wrecks they're finding now even as far as India and around like that. And the thought is that a lot of the reject stuff that came from the brick works, they used it as ballast, and then a finding bricks, round India and further apart. So with Coalhurst and Simmons or Apex markings on them.

Mell T 7:18
Your general interest in history is, as you've always been, there is something that's sort of that you've just grown into, or is it something that you've stumbled upon?

John Strickland 7:27
I was born in Burnham, and I've lived in Burnham all my life. And it was my father, really, my father passed. And when we were tidying at my mom's house, in the attic, we were going through all these boxes as people do, you tend to put stuff up in the attic, and you go through it. And I looked at one I thought cor thats quite interesting, ill put that to one side. And it got me interested in and since I've been a man of leisure retired, and I got into it in a really really big way. And it's so so interesting and fascinating as to as to our local history here that it Yeah, it's it's my big project, I must admit and hobby.

Mell T 8:06
So what I find fascinating as well is, is the term Highbridge and Burnham on Sea or Burnham and Highbridge and the seems to be, I always find it interesting where exactly one begins and the other one ends

John Strickland 8:19
Thats a very moot point, actually, I mean, going back to that some people might remember that the mini rounda...