banner ad
STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES NEWS: Vicky Angear for the Mercury pleads with readers for news as reporters are heavily restricted during the coronavirus crisis (but there’s news of crime in Axbridge) and an American bird has a good laugh at Cheddar Reservoir
By April 2, 2020 Read More →

STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES NEWS: Vicky Angear for the Mercury pleads with readers for news as reporters are heavily restricted during the coronavirus crisis (but there’s news of crime in Axbridge) and an American bird has a good laugh at Cheddar Reservoir

A brief roundup of local news from Harry Mottram on Thursday, April 2, 2020. With the coronavirus crisis gripping the nation it is hard to find much real news other than the press releases from the Government, the NHS and local authorities in the local press this week. The Cheddar Valley Gazette and the Weston […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES Looking Back at old Axbridge PART 3: When a three course meal was 1/6d in the town hall, Irish workers sang in the Old Angel, there were three pubs in the Square and there was a bicycle shop where the chemist is today
By April 1, 2020 Read More →

STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES Looking Back at old Axbridge PART 3: When a three course meal was 1/6d in the town hall, Irish workers sang in the Old Angel, there were three pubs in the Square and there was a bicycle shop where the chemist is today

Axbridge has always changed. From when it was just a Saxon bugh based around the stream that flows under the Square to the Norman French newcomers and later the Tudor wool merchants that gave the town its market charter. When I was researching the post Victorian era of the town for the 2000 pageant I […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES News: local newspaper review – Merv Colenutt on the problems of local football as the season is abandoned, Maxine Irving on life under lockdown, and a picture feature on nursing – a reminder of the NHS heroes battling coronavirus
By April 1, 2020 Read More →

STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES News: local newspaper review – Merv Colenutt on the problems of local football as the season is abandoned, Maxine Irving on life under lockdown, and a picture feature on nursing – a reminder of the NHS heroes battling coronavirus

Local paper review by Harry Mottram, March 26, 2020 With no reporters on the Cheddar Valley Gazette and those on the Mercury heavily restricted in comes as no surprise news is sparse in the two local newspapers. The theme is coronavirus and how people are adapting. With no sport the Weston Mercury dedicates its back page to contact details of local […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
AGENDA WEST Business News: Bristol Airport, Broadmead, Temple Meads, Axbridge, Yatton, Cribbs Causeway and Bristol Parkway to be connected by new tram system (and they will partly use redundant railway lines as well as the roads)
By April 1, 2020 Read More →

AGENDA WEST Business News: Bristol Airport, Broadmead, Temple Meads, Axbridge, Yatton, Cribbs Causeway and Bristol Parkway to be connected by new tram system (and they will partly use redundant railway lines as well as the roads)

Campaign groups for better public transport have welcomed the news from the Somerset, Kingswood and Bristol Transport Infrastructure Alliance that the chancellor has allocated £1.8bn towards the construction of a comprehensive tram system in the region. The plans will be published in full later this month which will see commuters able to take the tram […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES Looking Back at old Axbridge PART 2: When Axbridge had a petrol station in the High Street, a slaughterhouse and an undertakers (and the rural district council had offices next to the Roxy)
By March 31, 2020 Read More →

STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES Looking Back at old Axbridge PART 2: When Axbridge had a petrol station in the High Street, a slaughterhouse and an undertakers (and the rural district council had offices next to the Roxy)

Megan’s Axbridge Part 2 by Harry Mottram In the first part of this series we walked up the left hand side of the High Street picking out the shops that Megan Baker could remember from her childhood – now nearly all private homes. It was when I was researching the post Victorian era of the […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
AGENDA WEST Business News: Government’s business secretary Alok Sharma announces changes to wrongful trading rules during the coronavirus crisis meaning firms can continue trading although technically insolvent
By March 31, 2020 Read More →

AGENDA WEST Business News: Government’s business secretary Alok Sharma announces changes to wrongful trading rules during the coronavirus crisis meaning firms can continue trading although technically insolvent

Coronavirus: company rule changes protect firms trading while technically insolvent As companies lose footfall, orders and customers and see their cash flow disappear, the Government’s business secretary Alok Sharma has announced plans to protect firms who are technically insolvent during the coronavirus crisis. The wrongful trading law is to be suspended so as to protect […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES Looking Back – Megan’s old Axbridge: feedback about the article with stories of priest holes, secret passages and the vital importance of the butcher’s shop
By March 30, 2020 Read More →

STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES Looking Back – Megan’s old Axbridge: feedback about the article with stories of priest holes, secret passages and the vital importance of the butcher’s shop

There’s been considerable feedback from my article about Megan Baker’s memories of old Axbridge and the High Street (Part 1) with more anecdotes posted on the Facebook site Old Axbridge photos (and new). I simply had to share them here as they are so vivid. First up is Martin Barnes whose very existence is due […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
AGENDA WEST Comment: you may not agree with this alternative view of the way the coronavirus crisis is being tackled by the Government but Harry Speed believes the cure could be worse than the disease as business collapses
By March 30, 2020 Read More →

AGENDA WEST Comment: you may not agree with this alternative view of the way the coronavirus crisis is being tackled by the Government but Harry Speed believes the cure could be worse than the disease as business collapses

Harry Speed fears the cure is as bad as the disease. They say the first casualty of war is truth, but during the coronavirus crisis the first casualty is the economy (and the second casualty is common sense). If you were to propose during a general election that if elected you would close down most businesses, […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES Looking Back at old Axbridge PART 1: When Axbridge had boutiques, a fish and chip shop, there was a slaughterhouse in the High Street and one of the largest butchers in the county (and a drapers shop so you could make your own clothes)
By March 29, 2020 Read More →

STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES Looking Back at old Axbridge PART 1: When Axbridge had boutiques, a fish and chip shop, there was a slaughterhouse in the High Street and one of the largest butchers in the county (and a drapers shop so you could make your own clothes)

Megan’s Axbridge Part 1 A walk through part of Axbridge with the memories of shops and businesses of the late Megan Baker by Harry Mottram Axbridge has always changed. From the Saxon bugh when old English was spoken by the residents as they their sharpened swords to fight the Danes, to the 21st century when their […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES: Blackberries, markets and commuters: the changing face of Axbridge and how it all started with a Romano-British funeral
By March 28, 2020 Read More →

STRAWBERRY LINE TIMES: Blackberries, markets and commuters: the changing face of Axbridge and how it all started with a Romano-British funeral

This is the first in a series of short articles about the town of Axbridge in Somerset and how it is (and always has) changed. We think of ribbon development from Cheddar or fill in housing plans in empty plots in the town, but tin reality the town has always had new comers forever expanding […]

Posted in: Uncategorized
Next Page »
banner ad